Cinco Storia
by Yuri the Eighth Demoness
Summary: Jupiter is dead. Iason ascends into the godhood...and he takes Riki with him. {Post Ai no Kusabi; my supposed 'what-ifs'. A series of five stories.}
1. Storia Isa, Awakened

**Yuri: "Just to make it clear, I want a MALE Jupiter****" And life became a little more interesting after I said that. (sarcastic laugh)**

**Apologies**** the Seventh. My temper got the best of me. ^_^**

* * *

Just when Tanagura was on the brink of destruction, the Council, then already made up of all the Tanagura Blondies, had discovered _them_, the _lovers_, Iason and his mongrel Pet, Riki, locked in each other's naked embrace, nothing more on them but the now-Black Pet and Master's Rings, both bodies twined like some beautiful artwork encased in stone and ash, sealed under the detritus of the fallen plant.

They had survived the destruction of Jupiter in a cocoon, whether they were aware of it, had a hand on it or not still a baffling mystery. But they were alive, breathing, surprisingly unscathed and without _defect_, the incident that had taken place before their supposed demise somehow, for some reason, not affecting them both although much of the Council were furious. They thought the two to be merely lucky...and if they had survived the _Fall of the God_, they will not survive the execution the others wanted.

In earnest, however, Raoul had ordered them to be brought into the lab for analysis and instead diverted the lovers' fates in the mean time, although he was beginning to sense how pointless it was. Even if he did find a way to awaken them both, no, even just Iason, there's no telling what the Council will still do. But it was worth a shot. It was worth the risk if he could help an old friend. Indeed, he had even made contact with Katze, Iason's old Furniture, to make away with the two sleeping forms if any further threat arose.

Meanwhile the Council was wrapped in paranoia. Their hold upon the capital, pressed by the Commonwealth trying to sniff the lack of Jupiter's intervention for almost a year, and the ironically painful salvaging by elites of whatever was left of their pride, slowly crumbled Tanagura to dust. Yet Katze would bring _them _somewhere safe: including Riki of course because Raoul knew how much Iason would lament if he ever lost the mongrel again.

But then Raoul's worries would have been unnecessary. Because just when he feared having to fight to have his friend and the beloved _Pet _alive, that was when _it happened_.

Jupiter showed its final mercy, its last dying Will...that Tanagura continue even without his godly presence supervising it. Jupiter had chosen a new _god_ to take his place, and it was Iason's body that he had found favourable. And Riki's, which somehow was not so unexpected but was a wicked twist all the same.

It started that time when everyone noticed some activity in Jupiter's remains a week after Iason and Riki's bodies were found. The System that went rogue and destructive almost to collapsing suddenly became passive and obedient, reactive to the subtle programming the Council then put it through. They were able to restore part of the System that run some of Tanagura, which was unusual indeed, considering how futile their attempts had been in the last year since the incident.

Then under the scrutiny of Raoul's scanners a discovery was made as to why _exactly _the dead System was showing signs of life again. It was Iason. Unconsciously manipulating and writing sequences of codes for Jupiter's sleeping ends, showing waves exactly identical to that of the supercomputer. The Council was stunned!

Then Riki demonstrated the same, taking Iason's _algorithms _and actually _executing them _in his unconsciousness to slowly repair what was left of the Tanaguran Super System, throwing the Council into even further shock and awe, but putting a sort of victorious smile on Raoul's face. This meant they could not be dispensable. To further the claim, he immediately hooked their cocoon into a complicated uplink. It worked. The floodgates of all hidden data banks burst forth open.

Raoul next made a bold move by suggesting that they needed the two now, and for them to be executed out of _old tradition_ and _scandal _would prove as nothing more but fatal to all of Tanagura and simply egotistic. But it somehow had not gotten through. The fact that Jupiter has chosen Iason to replace it was not acceptable to the Council's members. They still wanted him and the Pet dead.

But just when Raoul was about to give up, calling in Katze to execute their contingency plan finally, another incident happened that would seal the lovers' return into acceptance for certain.

It was a weekend. The now-officially-named _cocoon _which held Iason and his Riki was slowly losing its capability to encapsulate the two bodies. Raoul and the Council came in to witness as both were _extracted _from their prison and separated, the latter mainly there to ensure they went nowhere. However, little did they know that dividing the two would come to such dire consequence.

For as Riki's slumbering form was taken _away _from the former top Blondie, the System of Jupiter that had been healing and regenerating began a countdown to self-destruction. Tanagura was thrown suddenly into darkness far worse than it had experienced since Jupiter's death, and, with the impending obsoletion the countdown promised, the Capital would have been annihilated completely.

The Council was in panic again. Raoul seemed to be the only one who had the proper sense to find a solution. He simply took Riki back. To Iason. Laying the youth's lovely and pliant body right next to where his lover lay. He made them a pair again.

"He is here. He will not leave you," Raoul whispered assurances to Iason's unconscious hearing, and everyone at the facility watched with held breaths as the System halted but then restarted and returned to normal with a silent hum as if the countdown that would have brought their dominion into ruin never started.

When they returned to look at the lovers again, they had both but unconsciously returned to their former embrace, the gleaming Master and Pet Rings like marriage bonds. They must not be parted.

Raoul had made his point.

Satisfyingly, the Council finally succumbed to his idea...


	2. Chapter 2

A voice was calling his name. Even in sleep there was no peace. He could see how vividly things exploded before his eyes: that one time before you die when everything paused, slowly, slowly reeling and then allowing you to literally review what you had done with your life. Though perhaps it's absurd that an android could have a similar experience. It happened.

He saw Jupiter scream, but heard none of it. He saw the super being melt, demolish, collapse upon itself. Then die. He witnessed the god who controlled Tanagura vanish, in pain, in shards shattering until there was nothing left but the very _core_ that was so warm, so destructively intense the glare made him wince, made his skin ache terribly.

He had long lost his limbs. He would next lose his life as the said core was enveloping him, swallowing him, attempting to strip him slowly from clothes to artificial skin to flesh to bone to the very marrow where he once had pounded into his Pet the fact of his ownership. He thought he himself would die soon. But just when he did think so, just then...he didn't.

The core offered itself to him in the resounding voice of Jupiter: _One wish my dearest. One wish I shall grant of you in my death..._

A wish? He immediately saw Riki's face, his unmistakable smile. What a lovely smile. It reminded him that despite having everything in the world as an elite, the position was nothing more but a superficial fate. That after seeing it all, _doing _it all, the only thing that could make him really _truly _happy was a mongrel's smile, the challenge of his eyes, to be able to touch him, possess him, to _be _his everything.

"I think I love you," he heard Riki say, before the blast eclipsed that smile for all eternity. He then thought to himself how he could have wanted more to stay only in the presence of that single smile. But then it was over. He fought, despite confusion and near desperation. He lost. And still lost Riki in the end...

Jupiter read his thoughts, his longing. He had no need to conceal it. He never really wanted to if not for the threat of his former situation. No longer relevant at this point. For that the core glowed red, menacing, burning him through, except somehow, he had already accepted this judgement. He had accepted it the moment he had attached himself to a mongrel of the Slums.

"I suffer only for him," Iason closed his eyes.

_Would you really chose a mongrel over me? I who had taken such care of you?_

"Yes," it was the truth. "I would choose Riki over everything. Neither status nor grandeur nor position in the end could compare to the happiness he presents to me..." he had never been so sure... "He is the soul I've never had."

With that he wanted death, prayed as if he could that it came swiftly. He wanted to meet his beloved wherever he was. He wanted to be with the _human _he loved.

_You are stubborn. Such madness. Throwing your life away for-_

"-I never had a life," Iason gently argued. "Riki was my _only_ freedom. He was my only escape..."

He felt this statement shake Jupiter to its very centre. It fell to silence, hearing those words coming from the very mouth of what was once his most heralded Blondie. Yet the latter was already dying, as Jupiter was dying, so whatever triumph Iason might take from this would be a hollow victory still. Riki was already dead.

Jupiter suddenly went cold. His presence slowly diminished itself into an insignificant spec, seemingly assessing, calculating, before gathering enough power to once more grow. The Blondie opened his eyes and wondered, "Why?"

_Very well_, said the core. _You have won my arrogant creation._

This jolted Iason.

"Won?"

_Allow me to grant you my final gift. Something which you have been desperately fighting for, as you imply, all your life..._

_...all your life..._

_"Riki..."_

Sapphire eyes slowly opened, blinded by a sudden glaring light his mind belatedly processed to be some lamp left open overhead. But then there were no lights where he had slept, there was only darkness, and a subtle feeling of cold that assaulted his senses rather immediately. He heard a hiss and something popping open around him, head to foot.

He could feel the sheets, smell the scent of freshly pressed, freshly changed satin, feel the texture slip through his fingers as he tried to move idle muscles, muscles that he hadn't used for so long. He started. That startled him.

He almost shot up, if not for noticing he was encapsulated then he definitely had to reach and open that lid himself. It eased up and off quietly, even as his shaky hand afforded little strength. Where was his strength? And where was he? The last time he recalled, they were being devoured by catastrophe in all four sides. Right now he was simply in a pod, made to be a chambered bed which monitored his health. He wasn't in his room.

Disoriented, Iason tried to make sense of things and peel through his memories but could supply no answers to his own questions. He remembered losing his legs. As he stared down onto the blanket which covered his sinews he wondered if the shape they formed was his or had another pair taken their place?

With a second, two of hesitation, he drew back the sheets where beneath he was but splendidly nude, surprisingly able to feel his legs as he moved unaccustomed toes. He hesitantly reached to touch his knees. These were his knees! But how can that be, when he could recall so clearly how he'd been dismembered during the incident.

"Riki..."

Iason frantically, most panickingly jumped out of the pod and almost lost his balance, a sudden flash of dark hair, dark eyes swimming into memory. Yes, definitely his body. Nothing was removed. Nothing was replaced. He was shockingly whole; his heart and head throbbed, his spine stung, his innards twisted as he heaved for necessary breath. Grasping the nearest support, he glanced around aiming to regain control over his facilities now...he just had to.

"Riki..."

He had to find him. He must. But his body was in disagreement.

"Damn," Iason stumbled onto the carpeting, cursing the inability to possess the strength now when he needed it to find his beloved. Why the superior mechanisms built into his body fail him now?

His legs wobbled. His feet were so uncertain for the first time since he could recall that every step was like teaching himself to walk again. Everything was a struggle. He fell.

"Riki..."

Then he heard it, a low groan or grunt that was almost inaudible. Desperately, he tried to focus beyond his panic, searching for calm, searching for the source of that sound which somehow reverberated in the dark the way Riki's voice did. Only then was he able to notice his pod wasn't the only pod in the room. There was another.

With difficulty, Iason slowly stumbled to his feet, managing his weight and balance so as to be able to make it to the side of that other bed. There was a sudden spasm that crept up his back and stung his shoulders as if he had been miserably drilled, but he ignored it. Then there, for what seemed like eternity, he looked down, reverently and almost not believing, at the occupant. Such great happiness threatened his heart. _His Riki _was there. Those dark, raven locks had grown to a stunning sea of black now rippling on either side of his head.

Iason was almost scared to touch, beyond frightened in fact to open that capsule as if the being there lain was the most fragile of treasures and he could so easily shatter it. He hadn't valued it enough before...those nights spent tearing carnally for the very last drop of his nectar from that body even as Riki screamed no more.

As if to awaken the youth would mean transgression. But he had to do it. He had to touch his face, his entirety. He had to be certain the other was as he is, not incomplete. He needed the assurance of him terribly. He needed to simply know he was all right.

"Riki..." he couldn't stop calling his name. It was like a string that anchored him to existence. Had he not aged, his Pet? Had he not changed except for that longer sport of hair?

With trembling hands, Iason reached, carefully drawing the sheet that covered the younger of them. He trailed his eyes over his naked body, noting every crevice, every corner, every muscle visible, the glowing skin and hair, his sleeping sex. Only then was the Blondie able to breathe. Riki was undamaged. He was whole...

_This is the mongrel...you chose him over me...I return him to you, perfected..._

Iason felt relief wash over his form. He felt exhaustion. He fell to embracing the unconscious youth, an anomaly of tears easing their way down his cheeks. His mind remembered Jupiter.

_"But why?"_ he'd asked the super-being, witnessing how the core slowly re-constructed Riki before his very eyes, adding a few considerable touches...what were those touches?

_Because I miscalculated. Achilles was never meant to be a weakness...because he is your strength. He has always been your strength..._

Iason opened his eyes. He slowly lifted his naked hand and saw the glittering dark ring. He trailed his sights to what lay limply between Riki's legs and saw the equal of it. Would this still need to define them?

Jupiter was the one who returned him Riki, and before its demise, had blessed them both. Why must they be unequal still then? The Blondie swallowed, lifting his face from where he buried it on the other's chest, leaving a kiss on the skin as his lips passed it, moving to finally kiss those unmoving lips. Supple. Alive.

Iason cupped that cheek, softly, still much too overwhelmed. He was here, yes, breathing. They were both existing. That fact made him look at his dear Pet's face, and with his fingers, just tried to memorize this moment, tried to trace the lines he'd come to love so well on that face.

But the knowledge that this could _no longer _entirely be Riki dampened the happiness, recalling Jupiter's horrid reconstruction which instead, slowly brought silent tears. When had he found this heart?

"I'm sorry...my love..."


	3. Chapter 3

The way to Jupiter Tower's main sanctum was a long walk Iason did not mind taking, dodging guards, eluding surveillance and all manner of securities rather effortlessly as _they _made their way through. Perhaps because he had wanted to be alone, and, the entire building having been rigged to accept Jupiter's commands-ironically, _his _commands now-was easily manipulated to give them the space he wanted.

The pods, he surmised, had a trigger mechanism that would alert a control or monitoring team when they awakened, but it had conveniently malfunctioned as he roused into consciousness, even as he'd taken Riki out of his own bed. A handy skill. He remembered it now. This was all Jupiter's doing and he had proceeded to study it all in earnest sooner enough so as to wield it now. He couldn't help but feel like he was waging battle against an entire unjustified world

The cold halls and hidden corridors were silent, dark, unoccupied as they moved on, nothing but his light footfall resounding against the metallic surface of the entire structure, as he carried his weightless beloved in his arms, progressing forward to _that _destination. He had used the sheets in the pods to wrap them both, wounding the ample rubicund cloth; forming a hood over their heads and making them look like two mysterious figures only further hidden by the shroud of shadows.

When they got to the levitating platform, the usual retinal scan that allowed Tanagura's Blondies admission was not performed, the transport automatically floating up with the two into the very heart and core of what once had been the _brain _of the land high above in Jupiter's Tower.

The room was as mercilessly dark. It was damp. It was freezing. No overwhelming presence existed now in the circular space to suffocate Iason. No god. Jupiter has not been here for a long time now, that was easy to tell. Moment of truth.

The Blondie laid Riki onto the nearest appliance he could find: a cerebral link, which in all plainness was just a mere semicircular bed used to integrate into the System. It was not functioning, Iason predicting how the others might have attempted to substitute his interaction with Jupiter during his absence but to no avail. They had attempted certainly to salvage the System on the verge of annihilation, but he could tell there was no success. Yet knowing Raoul, he would have tried everything.

"I'll return my love," the Blondie kissed Riki's cheek, hand trailing over the warmed spot where his lips had impressed themselves before he let go of that warmth. With quiet grace, he made it to the centre of the room, drawing his makeshift hood down.

His mind drifted back to that dream. To Jupiter.

"Why?"

_Because I miscalculated...I shall grant you this one last gift...The capability to protect the only being you loved all your life. The being you cared for more than you cared for...Tanagura._

Is that really all there is to have had Jupiter change his mind so completely?

"I...need answers...Tell me what I must know!" Iason closed his eyes, pleaded, raising his hands as if in supplication to a deity that may never heed. The sheet slipped but he let it be, glorifying in the fact that this naked state was more a perfect significance to what he was now, an empty shell of his former self. Tonight he will decide perhaps how he will accept the new burden Jupiter had left him or perhaps he will learn how to deny it.

The mechanism he recalled to once project Jupiter's manifestation hummed with a start, glowing from within and slowly taking light, slowly changing as a reaction to his call. Then came the riveting ribbons of data, exploding in profusion enough to shine the room and illuminate Riki's beautiful face as he lay there motionless on one side.

The ribbons reached for Iason, embraced him in spirals, surrounding his nakedness with precious confidential details, protocols and orders known only perhaps to a god, and must now be known to _him_. Unbelievably, he processed it all, catching all the messages pre-installed by Jupiter, his already fully-awakened mind filing them away for further analysis later. He just wanted to know what he needed for now.

_To my heir apparent_, the Blondie finally opened his eyes, hearing the dead god's virtual voice rise into synthetic speech. He relaxed, looking into the circle of light that had now manifested and engulfed the entire chamber without him noticing. He squinted his eyes a bit to adjust to the glare, but he remained still, determined to know what Jupiter wanted. _Listen to my instruction and heed my Will..._

In all this, Riki shifted, brows knitting but his master had not seen this subtle change. The message continued, every word a definite echo in the sacred mechanical space: _You are now..._

_"...the new Jupiter..."_

* * *

The main control nerve of Tanagura was drenched in a sudden red light, causing the Council members present for a briefing to suddenly halt midway their heated altercations as the alarm continued to bawl on. A beacon had been set off somewhere.

Immediately, Raoul called for his staff, but the comlinks had malfunctioned, much fluctuation and interference on the lines. Communication was nearly impossible as the floating screens contorted, warped. He bolted.

Taking the teleporting gates, he surged into the monitoring floor, and in a fit of pure rage snapped, "What had happened!?"

The staff was scrambling when the rest of the Council filed in behind, "Raoul, what's going on?"

Finally, someone answered, "Sir, there'd been a break in..."

Raoul was flabbergasted, "Where?"

"Top level, Jupiter's Tower sir. Someone had accessed it. We detected various system abnormalities from within it."

Raoul's mouth literally dropped, "How can that be? The Jupiter interface is already dead!"

"We don't know sir. Droids have already been dispatched to investigate..."

"How can someone access Jupiter?"

How indeed? For a year since the incident, any interactions in that area had ceased to exist. No android in Tanagura, Blondie or otherwise, nor even specially synthesized intellectual recovery programs have been able to pry open the data mainframes that have been left within. No matter what they did, the secrets of Jupiter had already been lost to time, to deterioration...or have they?

"...no way..." Raoul trailed off at the realization of _one_ possibility. Methodologically, he then activates the screens, getting blurry views from surveillance, but no matter as he flicked his hand and eyes over all the most recent records rather frantically, looking at all the access images in search of something.

"Raoul, tell us what's happening," the other members were buzzing with various queries but he ignored them as if what he was doing took precedence. The warning sound still beamed in the background, refusing to stop as he himself refused to pause even to breathe.

"Raoul!" finally, Gideon Lagat made him turn, stopping him with a hand on his shoulder long enough to ask, "What_ is_ happening?"

The screen projection suddenly flickered to a stop. Raoul turned his attentions to it, immediately ignoring that questions again to magnify the image so that the entire room could see, including the other impatient members of the Council, what he was going for. Thankfully, someone had already hushed the alarms and the peace had settled, albeit briefly.

It was the room where they kept _them_, the Blondie of Tanagura and his Mongrel Pet, but to everyone's surprise, the pods were opened, the compartments completely empty save for the impressions of bodies that have recently occupied them, now gone. The covering sheets were likewise gone.

Raoul slammed his fists.

"Who's been monitoring this room?!"

No one dared answer from the staff at first, then, with much hesitation, three upstarts recently graduated from Midas raised their voices, stammering as they replied, "W-We were my lord."

Raoul wanted to be angry. Gideon however had eased a hand on his shoulder once more, this time, for calm.

"They wouldn't have gone out of Tanagura. Iason could still be here," the latter predicted, swallowing exhaustion.

"We need to find him. We need to find them..."


	4. Chapter 4

His back had been hurting since the time he's awakened in that pod, and now, after exchanging synapses with the dying Will of Jupiter, Iason finally knew why though apparently it was no cause for alarm. Neither was the fact he'd blasted the lengthy window of the Tower into shards as he swiftly made their escape back to the highest class residential zone of Eos, back to _home_, Riki a slumbering demigod as they _rode _the wind up into the nest.

Anonymously, they had reached their topmost den the same way they had reached the god's room, Iason sealing the level completely for good measure. Everything malfunctioned at Iason's will as he carried Riki up and upwards to finally lay him on the very bed where he first tasted the ripe fruits of his body, where he first sought out to subdue the thrashing mongrel, where they eventually first had their marriage. The house of Mink was oddly clean and unchanged.

He suddenly found the urge to rinse, but was inexplicably frightened with the idea of parting with Riki after so long. Hadn't he after all promised never to let him go ever again? Effortlessly he carried his priceless yet unconscious treasure into the bath with him. No serving Furnitures to prepare the bath and attend to them. He had to do it all by himself. Yet, given the ability to manipulate the automation of the space as he wanted, he found it to be rather easy.

In the pool as the waters gushed and gurgled from a miniature stream falling above, for the good part of an hour, Iason spent his best efforts washing both their bodies, lovingly running his hands and uncharacteristically careful as he'd been, over Riki's limp form, having sat him in front, between his legs so that he may support him, cradling his head carefully on his chest so the Pet doesn't drown.

He lathered their hairs and wondered if it were possible to cut the other's hair as short as his recollection served yet decided against it. Perhaps Riki would want this hair length. It was a lovely length. It was a length fit for an elite.

"We're home my love," whispered Iason as he watered off the rest of the suds from his Pet's ever-radiant skin. "When will you open those lovely eyes to scorn me again?"

Iason felt a deep sense of over-protectiveness, and an equally louring sadness. With much care as before, he once again carried his prized Pet to bed, but not without first drying him, making certain to dab the soft towels even into the most intimate crevices of that body. What part of the other has he not seen? Not reached? Not touched? He half-wished Riki would sigh, arch, bend...move again with that feline finesse familiar to his senses.

In bed, Iason held Riki close under the silken covers. He inhaled the scent of his beloved, relishing the thought that they were both continuing, that he was able to hold the one most important person in his life again. Iason yearned for him so badly, he ached both in heart and body.

Feeling the urgency to just look at his Pet, he rolled them both on the bed, gently bringing Riki beneath him. He loosed the covering sheet, revealing for his view _all _his beloved had to offer. The body was as beautiful as he remembered it, as flawless as when he first explored it. Iason bit his lip as he reached the jewelled shaft. Recalling _that moment _made him hard between his legs, his own longing member springing even as he resisted, the want and desire making drum beats in his ears.

"Riki..." he barely recognized his own voice as he ran his hands along the line of his Pet's jaw, up to trace with the ball of one lengthy finger the blushing lips which unexpectedly...exhaled.

There was a pause. Iason wondered if he could do something like _caress _his lover into waking, seeing that the latter responded as effectively to the simple touch despite his unconsciousness. Perhaps the training will still work its seductive poison? Jupiter must not have certainly altered this as well?

He touched him more, running his palms this time, a gleam of his Master Ring surprisingly unnoticed there then gone as he firmly felt the ridges and hollows, the indents and bulges that made up Riki's form. Such wonderful provoking qualities; exactly how science-bred pet bodies compared to those naturally grown in Ceres differed, Iason could actually laugh at. Wasn't even Guy, already in his advanced years, a rough Adonis of sorts?

But then he shouldn't have thought of _that other man_. Especially as the body beneath him was already his. _"I am yours. I belong to you," _Riki had made his forced and sacrificed vows. When had that reunion been? For a Blondie, he had a tendency to drift too much lately. Iason thought better to cease those consuming thoughts unless they could be manipulated for the situation.

The body arched. What further surprised him was how easy he had roused the burning demon between Riki's finely-chiselled legs as he settled there, grinding up so that he could plant his loving kisses. Cheek. Yes. Salty...sweet...neck...Iason licked...bit...hard...remembering the games that marked his Pet and another exhale from the younger of them was awarded to him. The trail ghosted lower.

Chest. Beautiful. The nipples blushed as he rubbed, twisted them, then finally bent down to kiss, to tug between his teeth and bite then suckle, circling each nub with his wet tongue. Same response. Riki exhaled, back bowed, but never opened his eyes. His face stayed annoyingly serene. But no sadistic impulses were to be allowed play tonight; for he does not fully know what state the other was in, although Iason did want to push it even further to see where it gets him.

"Open your beautiful eyes for me, my love," the Blondie's almost honeyed pleading sung in the semi-darkened atmosphere of their room, as he ground his erection against the other, his own pace slowly reminding him just how crazy with heat and lust he could get when with Riki. He pushed himself up. He might as well try other ways he knew to arouse his Pet.

He started gently, rubbing Riki's entrance with a finger, teasing before stopping to wait. Then he slipped that finger in, met by an unforeseen tightness that he had to twist his digit into. Iason wondered, lifting that leg up to look at his Pet's anus, the ring so tightly puckered and constricted.

_...return him to you...perfected..._

Iason pulled back. For what seemed like eternity, he again looked down at that body, feeling truly dumbfounded as he sat there on his heels, realising that indeed Jupiter was keen to keep his word. His eyes fixed upon the Pet Ring. Even this Jupiter has changed into something that wasn't what he remembered.

Disbelief. Iason hung his head. What had he done? Had he ruined Riki's life for good?

Again he reached. This time, not for the body before him but his own. He ran his hands unto himself, feeling the depths of change coursing beneath his skin. Even _he _was not himself now wasn't he?

In the embracing darkness, the Blondie quietly felt the depths of his own wanting, his need again, selfishly growing like a monster from deep within him. This was madness!

_...Riki…_

The exploration had suddenly become as a trigger, causing his body to suddenly erupt into itself.

"Riki."

A ghost of breath passed his lips. Iason began to touch himself, doing in earnest the humiliating act only Pets should do upon command. He could feel himself harden and lengthen at his own ministration, mind suddenly brought back, as he closed his eyes, to that day he had triumphantly taught Riki to masturbate, the sight of a groaning mongrel lost in the heat of intense pleasure, making for him quite the show of passion.

How he then proceeded to ravish such a body, their first time together an utter mind-blowing experience Iason wanted to feel again. Of course, Riki had already been _used _then. The Slums did not preserve virgins for certain, but the bitter fruit of that first union was the sweetest the Blondie got to sin itself and he can never forget it.

He had smashed Riki to a thousand pieces that day. The moment was ripe again for it now...

Opening his eyes, the Master cast a glance at the body he now straddled. He ached more in his own grip, and wanted immediate satisfaction, to be buried and united with this mongrel from the Slums, the mongrel whose body was now transformed to be _his_ for _eternity_.

_...Perfect...he shall be the crown of a new kingdom for you..._

Iason let loose what want he had been storing inside, removing utter control over his senses and allowing the monster that Riki feared so much to dominate his every motion. He sought that primal spot, aimed, and in one possibly shattering heave, rammed into Riki full force, the bed shaking in the wake of his intensity.

Riki did not stir. His unconscious body had already ceased to respond earlier, settling down unto the bed. No ear-shattering screams, no vain try at escape, no struggles that fuelled the sadistic fire...there was only...blood.

Iason had broken into his Pet, a tinge of shamefulness he easily tucked away as he began to move, pounding into that newly-devirginized entrance with much heat, glad of the tightness, the sucking flesh that enveloped his shaft with such vice, it made him flinch.

But the more it hurt, the more he wanted to be pulled further within, never mind if Riki was asleep, never mind if he, his most beloved, for the moment was closer to a Sex Droid than he could ever have been before all this. Iason sought his unorthodox release and the faster, the harder, the stronger he pounded in, the closest he got to sending himself over.

"Why hadn't _you _programmed _us _to awaken on the same time!?" Iason cursed Jupiter, before a final hiss, a final growl of frustration at last pushed through him, ripping his very core into a tumble helplessly down the abyss. Of despair.

What was he doing? He collapsed on top of Riki, spent, not nearly enough effort put in the act but it somehow zapped him of his strength. It was more a mental frustration than actual physical exhaustion. As if for a few, brief, harrowing moments he was just_ human_, not Iason Mink, once head and perhaps will be once more of Syndicate.

"Riki..."

A sob of defeat. He stole his hand down there between his own legs and brought a blood-semen-stained concoction up so he could see how it seemed to menace at him under the dim light. Riki's blood. What salvation was there now? He was a System-made deity, and now so was his Pet.

He looked at Riki's face, the non-changing serenity that was his judge and executioner at the moment. He was in utter guilt of what he has done.

"Pity my existence...I am the worst...Perhaps we should've been better off dead..."


	5. Chapter 5

The Blondie managed to clean his Pet as best he could after making a mess of him earlier, but was still somehow in contention. Making love with Riki as the latter was unconscious seemed generally unfair, a complete violation as his body especially since it had been made virgin again by Jupiter. Yet in his black heart it felt just sinisterly amazing. Never mind if it wasn't right...

Iason raised _that_ hand up. He could still smell his Riki's essence there, he could taste him now if he wanted to. Somehow, he wanted to do it again. He wanted to take his beauteous Pet and make love, just twine his limbs with the other's limbs, kiss, touch...that seemed insane! But then he had long admitted the possibility that he had indeed lost his mind when he courted the disaster of having a slum trash for a pet.

A flash of red as Iason lounged contemplating. The System linked to the outside Gates immediately popped up in front of him in multiple projection screens. The Blondie's crazed fantasies and ponderings definitely needed to wait. They had company.

Tanagura's security force had surrounded the Tower below, swarming as if the location now housed a convict of some sort. Raoul and the other Blondies were present, stepping out from their respective vehicles, eyeing the tower with much nervousness and apprehension. He could see from the screens their doubtful eyes, but how long has it been since he's seen them all?

Iason knew there had been an evacuation earlier. The lower level VIPs had all been escorted out and in all likeliness did not even know of what was going on. Maybe the intention was truly to keep it all discreet.

"Such ridiculous roughness," the Blondie uttered, watching the swarm of black-armoured guards and drones gather like ants from all sides of the Tower. In their garbs, the elites looked like punctuations of coloured sand. "They can't even give us the night."

_I need to be alone. _He cast a glance at Riki, sleeping peacefully on the bed. He just wanted to sort this mess out by himself for now. _We need to be alone._

* * *

Orphe Zavi tapped Raoul's shoulder, impatient, fearful of the outcome this reunion would bring, "Are you sure he'd returned here?"

"Yes."

Gideon likewise voiced his uncertainties, "There are other places he could go to Raoul. I mean, there were no signs that he'd be here. Nothing was activated up his level."

But Raoul was certain that this was the only place he would be. First because Katze had not confirmed that Iason had left to anywhere. Second, his home was Iason's sanctuary, a nest for memories. If his friend had need to find himself, this was the place he would more or less start. But then these were but mere assumptions still. To begin with, it was a fact that Katze owed him no loyalty so he wasn't certain if he would tell him the truth.

Raoul gave the order, "Get to the Penthouse."

But before the guards could mobilize, suddenly, a similar blaring alarm proceeded to ensue from over the Tower. The Defense System has been activated, sending the place to follow an automatic reaction of locking itself up into a fortress incapable of any intrusion.

Orphe did not hide his displeasure, "Damn it. The Tower's going on a lockdown!"

Raoul wouldn't take it. "Can't we override the sequence?" he hollered at the elite staff of Sapphires trying to do just that but could not. They could not stop the metallic barriers from falling down and locking into place to close the Tower.

"Give me that!" Gideon stole the console, "We'll need to do something! Get control of the system back!" But then they should have thought it was impossible.

Iason had managed to clear the space of several floors at once, making his way to the entrance hall where he knew the troops had gathered. He didn't care if they sent the squads to try other alternate routes to get in: he has completely sealed and shielded the Tower, walking to confront the mob outside although he didn't want to see them at the moment.

All he had was a robe on which fell barely above his ankles, feet naked against the cold floor, but he could care less. In all respects he appeared solemnly ordinary, except for the perfect Adonis face and a shock of lusciously-longer Blondie hair which served to frame it. Briefly he wondered how he should proceed, before deciding exactly what it was he should be doing now.

The Butterfly Gates opened with a sound akin to a fizz or zing, and Raoul was first to notice the figure clad in white that stood on the other side of it. His presence made him stop.

"Gideon," the Blondie tapped his companion.

"What?"

A collective hush and pause echoed in the high-ceilinged partition as the entire class turned towards the direction, and were stunned to see the fully awake Iason Mink, regal as he always was no matter how muted he appeared, looking at them without an expression of care nor acknowledgement. Raoul signalled the guards not to make a sudden move as the former _head _of Syndicate all but reached a hand up to the door.

Spark of electricity enough to make his long hair flutter. The opening was shielded, and based on how they knew this Blondie for being intricate, so would be the whole of Eos Tower by now...It was Raoul who was first to approach their estranged comrade.

"Iason..."

Iason smiled, but spoke rather sadly, "Raoul."

"You did this?"

Iason could only confirm with a nod, "I'm yet to get a grasp on all of this. What Jupiter left...it's...too much."

Raoul then recalled a second empty pod in their sterile lab and somehow needed to know, "Is Riki...is Riki with you?"

Everyone waited for the response to reverberate from the other end of the shield. Perhaps as predicted, Iason replied, "Has he ever been anywhere else? Or do you still firmly believe I could otherwise do without him?"

That was a relief to Raoul somehow. At least he knew there would be little chance for Iason to do anything rash not with his only Achilles with him and safe. Not to mention they'd both be safer together. He stared at Iason for a minute. The expression there was something he couldn't almost understand. Confusion? Sorrow? What was it that seemed to trouble this once cold-faced _Ice_ Blondie?

"Iason, let's talk this through. We have things we need to discuss..."

Iason merely shook his head at that, "What I need is some peace."

Both Orphe and Gideon opened their mouths to speak, but Raoul promptly stopped them from uttering a single word of reprove. He wanted to prevent further anarchy than what was already happening.

"Why? Why all this? Do you really need to remove yourself so much from us?"

Iason could name all the Blondies present by heart. He had been groomed with them, had worked, functioned with them...but that had already been changed. He couldn't talk to them yet. He couldn't even bring himself to tell himself the truth of the matter, as if sleeping still in the cocoon with Riki. But then perhaps they knew now as well: he was certainly no longer the same as they were.

"Give me tonight Raoul..." Iason asked, his eyes the only betraying part of his anatomy. "Then you can tell me all that you want. Just...give me tonight..."

Even before they could stop him from going, the Butterfly doors fluttered shut, and the rest of the impregnable barriers locked into place, fastening so fast the motion totally surprised them. With that, they were entirely shut out. With that, Iason turned his back to them. Vainly, the guards tried to pry the System open, but under this _new _Jupiter's orders, the System just refused to give.

The encounter left Raoul even more aggravated, the others confused, and Gideon ultimately pissed, "Damn it. What now?"

Everyone turned to the only other Blondie worthy to command the Syndicate next to Iason Mink. Raoul deliberated briefly with himself, staring up at Eos Tower and somehow picturing what Iason could be doing. Going to Riki certainly. Where else would the other be? The same reason his friend had gone to the fire, he will go into it again for that Pet.

"We wait," was all Raoul said.


	6. Chapter 6

The one night had turned into two days, putting the Council of Blondies with a realm to be responsible for on edge and restless as they await for Iason to break his silence regarding the matter of his return. Raoul had the issue weighing heavily on his mind. _Give me tonight... _Iason hasn't lived to his promise thus far.

The earlier meeting with the Council had turned into one heated argument as the other Blondies struggled amongst themselves. Chaos was inevitable, as everyone seemed to have a separate opinion but which in the end were aimed towards a similar outcome.

Raoul recalled how Orphe contested, "This madness needs to stop! Iason is completely jeopardizing what we have been striving so hard to restore! He's placed all our plans at a standstill! Even Eos has lost its usefulness."

"What would you want us do? Force our troops into the Tower as if to apprehend a criminal?" Gideon retorted. "This is Iason we're talking about!"

"Iason who's apparently not himself! Someone needs to bring him to his senses."

It was Raoul who had to be the arbiter of sorts once more. "You two, stop that..." They settled, although the quarrel was far from over. Raoul looked at everyone at the table. "Let's give him what he needs for now. At least he has not shut the systems down. We should be thankful that Tanagura has already been stabilized."

"But until when?" Orphe sighed.

Gideon was perhaps just as exhausted as everyone. "Perhaps you can try send him a message. Call him. Tell him to talk with us Raoul..."

But Raoul _has _tried. He had sent Iason a plethora of messages that the other just had not responded to, making it perhaps the most unnerving. Somehow, despite being the best of friends, Raoul wasn't certain he still had his friend's loyalty or trust any more.

_Iason...please..._

After the meeting, Raoul resigned himself to visiting the office Iason used to occupy, looking out towards the view of the Ocean, wondering if there would be an end to this and asking the same questions everyone had. He would certainly want to know what Jupiter had done to both Master and Pet, and the implications it will have on Tanagura's ancient, seemingly fortified rules. But then again, if he was correct and Iason _had become_ Jupiter, then these may no longer matter. That or things will merely become even more complicated.

_I love him Raoul..._Love. Iason was and is still in love. Was it the reason why they'd survived the catastrophe and even Jupiter's scorn?

Raoul spent nearly an hour just pacing back and forth, thinking of a million things that could go wrong if Iason finally decided to call it quits. A year of absence. A year spent dreaming in a cocoon and like butterflies emerging suddenly. He could choose to end this madness in a number of ways Raoul might never even figure out. What if he's driven to the edge and finally just...disappears with perhaps the only person Iason might choose over all of Tanagura?

Raoul continued to ponder on these ideas, putting a scientific approach into each thought that crossed his mind although his mind might as well been bordering paranoia. Iason disappeared for a year and cast them all into the shadows. Jupiter died and refused to acknowledge anyone; the one he _did _he'd wrapped and stored away in Dana Burn, preserving him for the span of time that Tanagura was suffering. Heavy was the burden left. Raoul was without rest from the responsibilities. Iason couldn't possibly be considering passing it all back to him again was he?

His hand fisted. He wanted to believe they can still emerge from all of this. If only he could speak and reason with Iason.

Belatedly Raoul realized a beeping somewhere had chosen to disturb his reverie, and was almost cursing when he reached the switch and turned the comlink on. He was surprised to hear that familiar voice, which, despite its natural cold and coolness, was tinged with a sadness he'd earlier seen at the Tower. It rather surprised Raoul but nonetheless pleased him to finally hear from Iason.

"Raoul, I'm opening Eos. See me in the morning."

A brief message that ended as soon as it began. So this would be the chance he had hoped to persuade the other to come back. But then he had to prepare for it, knowing well how an inappropriate rebuttal could send Iason packing the other way. It needed to be planned, thought of, this might be the only shot he'll have to reason with his friend.

Raoul immediately called Gideon, who instantly appeared before his eyes as a holographic projection.

"What is it Raoul?"

"Call an urgent meeting with the Council. There's something we need to discuss."

* * *

Raoul walked into Eos and was stunned at how silent and desolate the space had become in the span of only two days. Everything was locked up, save for the gate which, as Iason had promised, opened to admit him in, the usual identification process applying. He was greeted by an army of surveillance bots and other Droids that were all part of the Tower's defences which had apparently been activated. They trailed him with guns, before they seemed to have gone on Sleep Mode and allowed his walk up. Jupiter's power, all this.

The Top Level wasn't as he remembered. Everything was centrally gloomier now, the outer shells that used to allow the light of day in shut tight and showing no signs of letting up. Raoul wondered how Iason was doing in this dim light. It wasn't in his nature to brood, or was the change in him so complete that he can be so utterly inflicted now?

"You never respond to any of our messages," Raoul broke the silence when at last he'd found his friend, on one of the massive chairs, looking forward with monitors and screens like a sentry. "Locking yourself away? Is this for good?"

His eyes immediately search for the one being Iason was surely to have beside him. The one being that Iason embraced for, and survived.

"No one has yet answered my question," Iason spoke, breaking his peace, collapsing the screens in front of him into a small dot floating in the air.

"Which is?" Raoul didn't quite follow. Then Iason gestured at the canopied bed perched a half level above them, a space away on its own separate circle, the only portion in the area where the sealed shell of the Tower was left slightly ajar, as if to let the outside in.

Raoul could imagine the bed being shone upon by sunlight, filtered by delicate fabric, then finally figured why all this drama for it. There lay the other. Riki. Iason's Pet and Prince the same, in seemingly eternal sleep.

"Why I am awake. And he is not?" Iason closed his eyes, feeling for his temples. So this was what had occupied him the last few days? It wasn't at all startling though.

Raoul measured his words, "We figured it would take time, but Riki will awaken. It's just a matter of when."

"I made love to him last night." Raoul was still taken aback at the revelation, although of course he knew that for a fact, since then, Iason was the only one of all the Blondies that engaged in making love with his mongrel Pet. His _personal _touch to Riki's training. "He responded. He came. But never opened his eyes."

So the delay was all because of this? Because his Pet would not wake up? Raoul just was unable to fathom the despair in Iason's voice. He cannot _quantify _the wretched emotion beneath the other's serene appearance. The other Blondie could only admit it, "This is driving me to madness, and much fear. His body might have remembered me, but what if his consciousness does not?"

Raoul sighed. He walked over to a spot where he could see Iason and where Iason could see him, and where he could look at Riki. His face seemed to have gone younger. He failed to notice it actually, but Jupiter must have likewise turned the clock backwards for the two. The Pet was again an eighteen-year-old youth, with his soft expression even more beautiful than he remembered it to be. Iason as well was considerably younger at a glance, as if he had just stepped out of their Tanaguran office four years ago, to roam Midas and unexpectedly come upon the Mongrel who challenged him so.

Raoul thought that at least he had to comfort his friend, "You need to step out with me tonight," he gently urged, although Iason's reaction betrayed his thoughts immediately. He didn't want to go.

"If leaving Riki worries you, Katze is already downstairs and waiting. If you de-activate the defences for him, I'll have him on his way up to stay with your Pet. I know you trust him. You can leave them sealed here in Eos."

"Katze?" from the looks of it, Iason had not even made contact with the man. "Since when had you been speaking?"

Raoul bowed his head. He sought a moment before admitting what had been inevitable, "Since you disappeared. He told me all about what happened..."


	7. Chapter 7

For some reason, Raoul had managed to convince a reluctant Iason to leave his darkened domain, and the Pet whom Katze seemed relieved to watch over. It was utterly difficult, as the other Blondie only confirmed that he no longer was capable of trusting after what had happened, but then here they were now, in Raoul's unmarked vehicle, flying smoothly over the sleepless city. Iason was dressed in his signature clothes, eyes shaded as Raoul had chosen to shade his own. They reached their destination in less than a quarter of the hour.

Raoul parked on what seemed like a personal aeroport, protruding from the side of a penthouse palace somewhere with Iason immediately questioning, "Where is this? What is all this?"

He could smell water and realized that the Ocean was but a short distance away. Also, that the space itself had its own water feature that his keen ears could hear gurgling, splashing, falling, then still into pools...

"Eos Tower Two," Raoul responded matter-of-factly. "Come in..."

The other urged Iason to stare down from a large balcony connecting to the private port and adorning the space, and managed to point out all the relevant areas of the _house_, though it still apparently was undergoing construction with the working droids set about to put this and that resplendent furnishing or plant in place. A parade of boxes and fine antique. A chandelier that would be as grand-or more-as the one hung in Midas. Although right now, there was still nothing but apparent darkness, only a scattering of smaller lights.

"Does it please you? Is it a palace worthy of _the_ Tanagura Blondie? It has all you'll ever need: three floors, a large private garden with several baths and pools-"

"Why here?" Iason stood still, like a statue, mind already hypothesizing the answer, without openly stating it however.

"Because this is going to be your new home. The Council has decided to move you here. Eos One no longer has capable security to protect you and _your affairs_."

Iason's brows furrowed, "I didn't request any of this," and that statement marked the beginning of Raoul's quest to convince him to come back.

"Tanagura needs you."

"So this was what it was? A trip to lure me to Syndicate again?" an unexpected flair of emotion, notwithstanding quickly sealed and kept at bay.

"But it's the truth. Can't you see? The Council will do everything in its power to have you return!"

"Why?!" Iason's suddenly raised voice shattered the silence, sliced it like a blade, making even the Droids stop, pause, processing then resuming their construction as they were programmed to, in a steady pace.

Iason gripped the railing. Raoul sighed, and moved to stand beside him, "No one knew of your return or how. We were mindful to keep it a secret. Yet you know how walls seem to have ears here in Tanagura. Rumours of you have now spread like wildfire..."

"Then must it be necessary to heed social pressure?"

Raoul smiled at that response. It was so like the reaction he had when he was brushing off the rumours about his mongrel Pet.

"If you're wondering, most of those boxes are gifts from the higher classes and the privileged, among others. Not only for you. Everyone is likely to be expecting Riki to come back so they sent gifts for him as well. Can't you see it?"

He actually can. Riki. Once again strolling about in this massive palace, scowling at him or casting a snide remark that he loved to argue with or quell down with ardent kisses and uncaring thrusts until they were no more than little moans. The thought almost made him cry.

"And if I choose not to Raoul? What would you do? What would happen?"

Raoul looked at him straight, "You won't."

"What makes you so certain? What if I want no part in all this?" he gestured, tired. "What if I chose to be somewhere else other than Tanagura? A place where there are no masters, no pets, just two people?"

Raoul leaned in the same way Iason had found the rail and sighed once more, "I understand why you feel so faithless. But you of all of us know that you do not belong anywhere else but here. Neither does Riki. Not any more."

"What does Tanagura care of a Pet? Why do you care of a pet? Weren't you the one who didn't agree with him in the first place?" Iason shook his head. "Riki never belonged anywhere his heart didn't fall into. And Tanagura was never his home, never since the beginning.."

That was true. Society here was cruel especially to a mongrel and a Pet no less. Raoul even had a hand in shattering the simplest of delusions Riki had that got him by. But then right now, it was out of the question. What Raoul felt and thought was to be of no use to his purpose. He trod more carefully.

Reaching into his robe pocket, Raoul produced a small transparent screen which he showed to Iason. The latter eyed it with silent scrutiny. It was labelled as the Jupiter List, and he could only see two names in the Registry.

"This is where _you _belong," he pulls up Iason's file.

The Jupiter List was something like the Elite of the Elites' Elite List, containing individuals they cannot qualify into anything else other than 'special' or 'beyond'. Raoul had spearheaded its formulation yesterday. In fact, it never existed until yesterday, however, the Blondies do intend on etching in steel and stone as an absolute they must respect.

"We know of your connection to the System Iason. We had monitored you whilst you slumbered and found out ahead of time what you are now capable of," admitted his friend. It wasn't a shock. Jupiter had spoken to Iason about it.

_The world will know who you are._

"Listen...Tanagura has acknowledged you officially as Neu-Jupiter," Raoul continued. "Your power, influence, control is now limitless. You literally have the entire planet eating from the palm of your hand."

"It is superficial, all this," Iason knew that what all this would do was put him a step higher above the rest. Even in the class he belonged to, he would be exalted above his own colleagues. Raoul read that openly.

"Without Riki? Is that what you have to say?" he need not have asked. But this was what he was waiting for, the nail to drive it all home. "Of course we have never excluded your Pet from the equation since."

He pulled up Riki's file from the Jupiter List for Iason to look into. His Pet's face swam before his eyes.

"For him the Council has decided to amend the Pet Law..." Iason was speechless at the revelation. He turned to his friend. "Tanagura will acknowledge Riki as _your Exclusive_."

* * *

Katze had already gone by the time Iason came home, choosing to climb his way _the old fashioned way _to where his Pet was, activating all defences at every level at the same time. The trip out left him rather tired, although his body had never been built for that.

"I'm back my love..." he bends down, a curtain of golden hair, and kissed Riki gently on his lips. His mind was going back and forth a thousand different things, including the talk he'd had with Raoul earlier...

Iason had turned to his friend, a clear sense of wondering and apprehension.

"The Council knows that your Pet was made an indispensable part by Jupiter. We are aware of what _he _had made him. The Council therefore has thought it wise to make him a special case, and if you return, we will ascend your Pet, the one you so _love_, into an elite."

Raoul has made his point, and he could see Iason thinking. He continues, "A pet the same but for you, only yours."

Iason laced his fingers together, pressed his palms and rested his forehead there, a comparable saint, a Blondie that was perhaps still in utter disbelief. If this happens then...then Riki can be...

"Why would the Council do that?" he'd asked his friend.

"Because he is yours, plain and simple. It still eludes me, why you broke everything for him, but I guess you had succeeded in pursuing your love that even Jupiter couldn't stop you. _His_ most perfect of us all you may have been, but you did as you wanted in the end."

Was that what everyone thought? That this was his form of rebellion to their old god?

"Do you think things will return as they were once I come back?" for some reason, Iason wanted to know. He could see Raoul's bewilderment when he turned to see him.

"What do you mean? Of course things will become normal-"

There was that stun, that surprise. A flash of midnight blue feathers and Iason revealed the secret he has been harbouring. Wings. Jupiter had granted him wings! And he wasn't the only one, as Jupiter had gifted Riki with the same as well...

The winged Blondie pursued, "Once you allow me to ascend to the space that a god like Jupiter has left, things _will change_. As I and Riki have changed. Is that a consequence the Council will still be able to accept?"

Raoul apparently was at a loss for words. He hadn't anticipated this, "Iason..."

He knew he must have had serious, even dangerous eyes when he unshaded them and looked at the other Blondie. Already Iason could see a space separating him from the rest of the other members of his class. This was what Jupiter had intended. He wanted to cause these rifts even as he died because he was that...he was a god who wanted everything to have its own distinction.

"If I, as Jupiter, declare to be mated only to a mongrel, would you still want to have me back?"

Raoul didn't know what to say.


	8. Chapter 8

As Katze was left charge of his master's Pet, for some time, he had been trying to puzzle over what could have happened that day, sorting through the bits and pieces of all his recollections. He was there after all, when Dana Burn exploded and the mines destroyed Jupiter, and when the accident took with it these seemingly star-crossed lovers.

Katze witnessed the fall of a leader, the death of his beloved, and the loss of both beings he considered to be his friends. A year he'd quietly mourned, brooded behind the same practiced apathy, going about the schedules and business affairs of the Black Market, dealing rather effectively with all the painful blows of Trade even as Tanagura was falling to ruin above him.

_What could have happened?_

Then he got that call. A Blondie who had been his master's colleague and confidant was asking for help. It was about _them_. It was about Iason Mink and Riki. His first reaction was obvious. He just couldn't believe it! Not until the Blondie snuck him into Eos and showed him the encased bodies.

_We need to get them out of here._

But of course that hadn't happened. Tanagura wanted to keep its _pivot_ in the end, and there was no one worthy enough to be it but his Master. But what will happen to Riki now? As he looked down Riki's slumbering form, he wondered, was actually fearful, of what might happen to this one. What if Iason could do no more to protect him?

There and then Katze made it his responsibility to find ways to help his fellow mongrel. He will do his best for Riki's sake especially when worse came to worst for him here, although he would not have guessed that it wasn't necessary.

As Katze was figuring in the darkness of the unit, there was a stir in the bed where Riki was asleep. Baffled, the ex-Furniture drew back and with wide eyes was taken aback by what he suddenly witnessed...a transformation!...wings as black as night unfurling from behind an arched, unconscious body, spreading like massive petals, curling mindlessly and folding into place. Then as quickly as they'd come, they were gone.

Katze had perhaps stared for a full minute or two, an involuntary shudder caused by shock and awe easing down his spine before parched, suddenly dry lips uttered a word, "W-Wings...?"

* * *

Tanagura gleamed with its usual stars, rivalling those above in terms of brightness and even beauty, ironically. Iason thought however that if ever they'd move to Eos Two, he may end up re-arranging the bedroom so it faced the Ocean instead. Riki might love the open breeze, the better, more peaceful view. He would hopefully love the smell of the washing waters whispering like sirens.

He shook his head, scolding himself, "What am I thinking?"

The Master looked back at his Pet. Riki was as he was, silent, unconscious with no sign as to when he will ever wake up...

* * *

Three days and Eos Tower One was once again opened to its residents, the unexplained lockdown and mysterious evacuation having been charged to nothing more but unforeseen _malfunctions_. The top level was still left sealed however, and every now and then a Blondie was seen accessing it and opening the doors, making everyone wonder although they knew better than to ask.

Raoul was able to arrange Iason and Riki's transport the evening before, and they were now both being examined in his personal laboratory, the other having convinced Jupiter's chosen that it was worth seeking some medical advice, especially for the Pet who didn't want to wake up. It was all made a secret of course, and all details of the tirade was placed on a need-to-know basis. Not even all the Blondies knew of Iason's coming into Raoul's domain. So there was relative peace for now.

The Biochemist had handed down the results of his probing to Iason, who sat, naked from the waist up on his examination pod. Riki was rested on the other just beside him. They had unfurled their wings at least five or six times today, Iason noticing that whenever he pushed his pair out, Riki's would respond. They were indeed connected.

"This was unusual," began Raoul. "...we scanned you and Riki for any bodily anomalies but didn't find these before. Now they've both completely re-structured. There are compartments beneath the skin of your back where your wings can be retracted into."

He pointed on the screen where the said hollow was visible. Iason just sighed at that, "Jupiter..." was all that he uttered.

"You mean this was his design?"

He didn't feel compelled to hide anything from Raoul, "We received it when we went into Jupiter's Tower, along with some explicit instructions...I don't know if Riki had connected with _it _that day, but maybe he had, otherwise his own pair might not have been activated."

"Instructions huh? Can you tell me about it?"

Iason smiled. Ever the questioning one, his friend. "I'm sorry. I was told his Will was to be confidential."

Raoul of course, understood, "I see."

He looked at Riki whose wings were a marvel of sleek black feathers. Raoul couldn't help but stare at them for sometime before he carried out with the rest of the examinations.

"We need to observe this one. He's showing quite the different-"

"I'm taking him home," Iason didn't want to give Raoul the pleasure of poking about his Pet's anatomy any more than he already had today. Bottom line, he only had one concern and many reservations with having his Pet and another Blondie in one room. "I do not want to have you treat Riki like some experiment."

"But Iason..."

The look on the Iason's face made it clear that he would not change his mind even if all Tanagura burned to cinders in three minutes. He had always been attached to Riki, and was hell-bent on keeping him to the point of obsession, not only these last few days but ever since he's made him his Pet. Raoul guessed that he had to understand that. He gave, "All right.

"But give me your word that you _will _come back to talk with the Council. Syndicate needs you more now than it ever had. You know it."

Iason did know it, and he has already decided that he would exploit that very idea to secure a future for _them _again, here in this damned cold capital. He smiled.

"I give you my word. Three days and I shall be ready."


	9. Chapter 9

I. Qualifications

II. Registration procedures

III. Pet husbandry

IV. Disease prevention

V. Breeding requirements

VI. Quality assurance

VII. Prohibitions

VIII. Disposal procedures

_IX. Exclusivity clause_

News of the Pet Law being amended was almost like declaring war against all of Tanagura's beliefs and social traditions, not to mention an utmost desecration of the rules first forged upon all owners by Jupiter himself.

But then the Council did not want to further delay Iason's return into their fold as they had been almost _dying _to repair what was lost of their grand dominion, particularly the System whose keys had been handed down to _the chosen _Tanagura Blondie.

So they made a show of it all. Because to manipulate the masses this way was as always the easiest done, and by toying with the general public's psychology by showing them such power was to make their interests an advantage that the Blondies can next wield.

First they admitted that Jupiter had already died, which was a shock to everyone, although it shouldn't have been because it was already the root of such widespread gossip. Then they notified everyone of his chosen heir, and that he had come back to step up into the dead god's pedestal to rule over his inheritance as was his new right and responsibility.

They were able to reintroduce Iason to the populace this way, with a parade of entirely solemn grandeur, moving him from Eos Tower One to his new palace with much ceremony. All the Blondies were there, six and six to either side, in their royal regalia, as _Neu-Jupiter _walked forward towards his new residence.

To ease Riki's transition into the picture, he was likewise carried in with the tide the day Iason re-entered. They placed him in a reverently carried cast of gold, dressed in robes of black, surrounded by blooms, a field of guards and much security. The entire affair. They had earlier confirmed that he was likewise chosen by Jupiter, to be Iason Mink's _Exclusive _half, and that he had also received the Will of the dead god.

No one was allowed to speak or meet with the two. Even in the Elitists' party that ensued after the transfer, Iason was kept away from the crowd, but the Blondies need not have to, as he himself maintained a distance before disappearing near-midnight to sit by his Pet's pod, looking at Riki's peaceful face as if seeking answers from his expression. He fell asleep beside him, and the next day woke up reluctant still to play into his new role...

Blue. Iason looked at the new robes he had on that morning. They were no longer the white-grey-silver-gold formals the rest of the Blondies donned. Blue velvet like the colour of his feathers he imagined; the hue somehow made him feel quite set apart. And he felt it was rather lonely on the very top.

"Must we always make such distinctions?" Neu-Jupiter asked as Raoul walked in to see him.

"Tanagura is all about distinction. You're Neu-Jupiter. There needs to be a difference."

"A difference that is not entirely necessary Raoul," he reminded.

"Oh but it is. It's _that _difference that protects Riki and puts him at your feet on the same pedestal."

Iason somehow agreed. Somehow it all felt right, to see himself like this, another breed above from the rest. The Elite of the Elite of Elites. And now he has Riki there with him. "How does everyone react?"

"To your return? As they should," Raoul responded. "They use the new title for you now...Neu-Jupiter. The Council has ordained it."

Iason looked out from his roomy closet. A circular platform hovered just beyond where he was, right above and dead middle of the very splendid Babylonian gardens of their new home. Chains were the only links that held it in place, kept the circle from flying away. No doors, no teleportation gateways...the only way to get there was a precarious flight which he of course can do. It should serve a good deterrent to anyone interested to transgress the place.

He looked up.

How the space was bathe with the brightness of glaring sunshine. It felt warm, felt assuring, although Riki who slept in the bigger Pet bed under canopies of silk in the middle of that platform was yet to bask in it. He still slept peacefully, and all Iason could do at the moment was keep him from being disturbed.

"And Riki?"

Raoul joined him where he was on the balcony, watching that circular platform drift, soundless groans as the chains holding it down swayed, "He has his own share of nomenclatures. The citizens of Midas call him Jupiter's Pet, Lover, Consort...The Council will simply refer to him as the Exclusive, of course."

Raoul moved them forward, "Our transport is already waiting outside. We should leave."

Iason would have looked himself in the mirror, but then he knew that the being who would stare back at him was none other than himself. The same Iason, but then he was not entirely the same was he?

"And thus my godhood starts..."

* * *

Half an hour after his master left, half hour after the system droids were set activated to guard the Penthouse Palace of Neu-Jupiter, a low moan escaped the lips of the sleeper, a stir into waking as he heaved deep, slow breaths of air, as if a child just burst from the clasp of his test tube.

Obsidian eyes open to the light, squinting at what seemed to be the brightest of suns, through lazy silken canopies. Sounds. Everywhere. A gawking bird, leaves rustling, falling water..._Where am I?_

Riki has been roused to consciousness, feeling his head split as if a knife had hacked it in two. He remembered bit by bit...there was an explosion. A deathly blaze. His last deep kiss with the Man he loved.

"Iason...," the pain surged when he tried to get up, so he fell back again, holding his forehead. "Iason..."

* * *

_**Yuri: If anyone's wondering if there's going to be a second Cinco, well, maybe.**_


	10. Storia Duwa, A Pet's Freedom

The Council meeting was held behind closed doors, all the Blondies in attendance as they ran through the finer points of the Exclusivity Clause of the New Pet Laws, each section being read, Gideon and Raoul debating on all the changes, the latter being a total perfectionist aiming to make everything _right_. Iason was silent throughout the proceedings, merely an attentive ear listening, happy somehow that in the end, it will still be about Riki.

"The Exclusivity clause was created to _exclude _one, therefore it should only specifically declare that the rules therein would only apply to Pet Z-107M. He must be in the writing," Raoul stated, on a gallant tirade befitting a knight.

It was an ancient discussion, like the rhetoric and arguments when Ceres was excluded from being part of the society that stands absolute to this day. Nothing much has changed in a year, Iason sighed to himself, everything finally becoming the same old thing, albeit he was relieved that the rules by which the Pet, Riki, was to act as an _Exclusive _were promptly created despite much anarchy amongst them:

IX-A.

The Exclusivity clause applies only to Pet Z-107M a.k.a Riki (see section 2: Jupiter List, Riki) and shall NOT include any or all other pets be they Academy-bred or otherwise

IX-B.

The Exclusive shall remain housed within Eos Tower Two where his Master resides, and is forbidden from living separately or leaving without prior consent

IX-C.

The Exclusive is given full rights but must subject himself to the all rules pertaining to his Master's house and must in no way go against these said regulations

IX-D.

The Exclusive must wear his Pet Ring at all times

IX-E.

The body of the Exclusive shall be, all technical and _System_ purposes included, for the sole use and pleasure of Neu-Jupiter (see section 1: Jupiter List, Iason Mink)

IX-F.

Any unauthorized contact with the said body by individuals (e.g. "beings") other than the one stated in section 1 of the Jupiter List, shall be prohibited and will merit Capital Punishment especially when pursued with the intent of harm or malice

IX-G.

Any unlawful contact by the Pet merits FULL disciplinary action which shall hence be carried out by his Master under supervision of the Council

There were other rules, guidelines, restrictions as the list seemingly went on forever, and debates which included things like separate citizen chips for the Exclusive and Neu-Jupiter, security, how Riki must be escorted at all times when his Master was not around, etc., etc., were tackled in earnest, although not _everyone _agreed with everything, raising the subject of whether or not this would affect the very fabric of their customs. Besides, there was the public ideal. How would this _change _alter the lives of those in their domain?

"The godhood has shifted," emphasized Raoul, taking the final word on the subject presented. "As we had thought to please Jupiter, so we must with his _heir_. The opinions of the populace are of no significance, however, the System and its bearers_ are_."

Point taken. The argument was closed.

Then intrigue inclined the discussion on the matter of pet soirees and the like gatherings, of which Iason promptly set his foot down. He will not have Riki's _real purpose_ as a 'vessel' for the System be undermined by these affairs, and as the Master grants full discernment unto his Pet whether to decline any and all of them as part of his _full rights _under subsection IX-C; if he ever does attend, he will not be allowed to participate so as to not violate subsection IX-E. These were immediately added to the list of sub-rulings.

Raoul wanted to reserve one subsection of the newly-formulated amendments open for his scientific evaluations regarding both Neu-Jupiter's and his Exclusive's interaction with the System under section IX-E, quote: _all technical and System purposes included…_unquote.

"There might be more to this than what we know and close monitoring should be exercised" he said, and they knew for certain he was right so they granted the motion without delay.

"To simplify then," Gideon sat back in his seat when at last, they had exhausted every possible angle and scenario on the subject. "The Pet of Tanagura's Neu-Jupiter shall be henceforth such, _his Exclusive_. That is the common fact."

He then looked at Iason who maintained his superior air, a cool facet chiselled with the hardness of ice. "Can you handle him this way though? We're basically granting him all freedom unheard of in pets."

It was a fact they were entirely afraid of, no matter how much they intend to give it to get their head back.

Iason just smiled and in all confidence assured his fellow Blondies, "When have I ever not?" He will make this work. For Riki's sake…he will once more walk on fire and burn if he must.

It was Orphe who raised the final vote, all documentations compiled and sealed into the databases , now a law meriting execution, "Let's put the issue to rest then?"

Everyone nodded in agreement.

"All in favour?"

The hall echoed with a resounding "Aye."

* * *

Panic.

That was the first reaction he had when he woke up in a room he neither recognized as his nor Iason's. The moment he opened his Obsidian eyes, the moment his mind would allow him focus and thought, he was immediately in search of any familiarity with the area but could find _nothing_, just that feeling of not belonging here, that the current situation was all wrong on so many levels.

He couldn't find a trace of his master _and _lover, the discovery of a different D-Type Pet Ring at the base of his penis doing little to help ease his worries. Worries that had made him fail to simply remember how Guy had actually castrated him at Dana Burn, making this scenario now a physical impossibility.

His mind was too occupied to notice the subtle changes in his physique and mentality, that his mind was actually racing through one logical explanation then another, which was honestly an improbability in itself as _he _was never naturally as intelligent, yet here he was, thought processes as quick as or even quicker to the draw when it came to it, than a top Android of Tanagura...

_'Had he been handed to another master?'_ Riki pondered. _'But then who?'_This was his ultimate concern at the moment however.

Curse the elites' lack of love for images. As vain as they were, everything seemed too minimal in terms of their sentimentality really. There was no effigy about to catch a glimpse of just who the person would be. _'Perhaps another Blondie?'_ for only they had the humour to use a D-Type (or so he imagined). Riki did not want to find out.

He forced himself unto his feet, and wobbled the first time, but held tenaciously onto his consciousness when he was about to fall, even as he summoned the reserves of the strength he felt, no, _knew_ that he hadn't used in a while. Three unsteady steps later, he'd found himself seeking a means of escape, and immediately.

"Shit. Where am I?"

There was none. Upon closer scrutiny of the surroundings, he was rather stunned to have found that the Pet Bed where he earlier lay was set on a platform circle that was literally suspended in mid-air! And from the corners of it, all he could see was a sheer drop onto the hard floor below.

"Shit. Shit. Shit."

Riki just couldn't believe his luck. How the hell did they get him _here_? And how the hell would they get him _down_? What annoying humour this _new master_ must have to actually _trap _him on a space that was nearly impossible to escape from. In addition to how betrayed he felt, for Iason perhaps was already dead and had left him to this fate.

But he didn't want to be here. He didn't want to resign himself to being bound again although that's yet to be determined. He didn't want to meet the new bane of his existence. He'd rather be away. He'd rather...he'd rather...

"Shit. Not now," Riki cleared his eyes as they misted over with trivial tears.

He'd rather want his old life with Iason back, his brain—no—his heart said, to be caressed, owned and punished even by that cruel Blondie, that Blondie he loved. That would be better.

_Iason...where had you gone?_

A raven head suddenly snapped up.

He'd heard a slight groan and noticed how there were chains connecting the platform he stood upon to the walls below.

Salvation. Or rather, it was a mongrel's ingenuity no less, for only such a radical mind would come up with such a dangerous and near-suicidal solution to his problems. Riki was damned serious, and knowing well that if he achieved this feat, afterwards, he'd have to _run again _with all his might...

* * *

They noticed Iason's sudden pause even before the building lights and circuitry flickered, causing everyone to immediately turn towards his direction as the seeming shiver of fluctuations were his doing. The Blondies in particular were immediately concerned.

"Was that you, Iason?" Gideon asked.

Neu-Jupiter fell into silence, quiet at first as if contemplating, before he replied, "Riki..." Iason knew he had to leave. Immediately. "He's awake."

It took more than mere strides to keep up with him as the Master all but sped off, stopping not despite being called after by Raoul and his other brethren who were falling far behind, "Maybe we should send-"

Iason instantly waved it off. "There's a faster way."

He half sprinted to the nearest open overhanging where, to his best friend's utter horror and shock, Iason unfurled his midnight blue wings, a flurry of feathers as beautiful as the night sky, spreading like petals, before the chosen one took to the air in one effortless leap.

The other Blondie watched him disappear into the darkening skies, the Council arriving a split-second late, confused as to where Iason had disappeared.

"Raoul-"

The Biochemist was cussing to himself, "We need to have security follow him!" And he scrambled for his pod car to hurry after Neu-Jupiter.

* * *

He couldn't explain what happened, but after he glided down the chain using the makeshift silk of the canopy as a rope and jumped over the balcony of an adjoining room, he discovered that his agility had taken a rather astonishing leap. Never had he felt so light, only confirmed further when he easily ducked the Droids guarding the floor, diving through several surveillance bots as they scanned the area for intruders and other unusual activities.

"Why's the security so tight?!" Riki wondered, guessing at how ridiculously _important _this new master of his must be for the place to be so completely crowded with guards and such.

But then it was impossible for him _not _to get caught. There were just too many of these mindless robots and only one of him that, soon enough, his fears were realized, and a Droid had managed to corner him in one corridor as he was trying to figure his way out through the maze of the place. It scanned his face and determined the one order it was programmed with:

Z-107M-Riki

Exclusive: Confirmed

DETAIN

Mindless determination perhaps close to a zombie-like state, only fuelled by algorithms and manicured syntaxes in a powerful though lifeless body. Riki had to fight, the mongrel in him awakened as metallic fingers reached to drag him back in, even as other units poured from the rooms to help subdue him, stun at the ready.

He parried, snatched a Droid by its arm and did not think that he could even budge it, but again had underestimated his own strength it seemed as he effortlessly dashed the thing against its other counterparts, ripping steel joints apart, crunching through metal and alloy, unexpectedly making way for himself.

What was this?

Riki stared in disbelief at the palms of his hands, wondering where all this _power _had come from, but then started when he heard those unmistakable footsteps long before more units became visible. He just had to get away. This won't be like that time at the Plage when he had been so helplessly caught. Because he believed it would no longer be Iason who would next come through the door to _show him pain_. He will _not get another master_!

Exclusive: DETAIN

"Shit," Riki looked about as he came to a bridge connecting this and another chamber, but either gateway had now been swarmed by Droids. Desperately, the Pet looked for another way out, only saw one and it was near suicidal that for a moment he doubted.

He looked down.

Another balcony below.

But then he was hell-bent on not getting trapped ever again that he just had to take that chance, no matter how futile it all appeared.

"God damn it!" and it could have surprised anybody as with one full bound, he spanned the distance…and survived.

Just when he thought he'd be dead, when he could almost see himself a shattered mass of innards with his brain squashed against the beautiful marble, blood in a lovely macabre pool, Riki landed on his feet like a cat would. This again surprised him.

"What the hell-" but still no time to figure things out. He wasn't in the clear yet. The Droids had come to unmistakably capture him, easily following the route by which he'd descended. Riki figured he just had to keep going, keep running as he had run the day Iason let him go…

Riki sped up, although almost impossibly, as he was getting cornered and cornered into even smaller space. He was running out of floor _and _options, until finally, he had his back against the glass of a very lengthy window with no way to go.

Sweat.

Riki could feel his longer locks annoyingly stick to his skin, adding to the sense of constriction drumming his ears with his heartbeat. Damn claustrophobia. But somehow it had more to do with the presence of the Droids than with the actual fear itself, and the actual fear of being caught in chains again.

The Pet looked over his shoulder. The lights of Tanagura and the dark of clouds with its promise of rain. Ceres must be beyond that horizon somewhere. A nonsensical thought. But then he doesn't belong there anymore, does he? The same way he believed that he didn't belong here either way…not without Iason, he doesn't belong _anywhere_.

_You shouldn't have left me..._

The lights dimmed as if to console him as he recognised an all too familiar feeling: grief. Because pain he knew he could handle, but never when he had a broken heart…

_To think you would be my last heartache you damned Blondie_, Riki smiled bitterly to himself, fingers pressing hard against the glass of the window, determining that what was to happen next was perhaps for the better…it was his only way _out_ now.

Riki ducked. He let the attacking Droid's electrified fist slam and shatter the glass behind him, pulling at that arm, sending them both to plummet the many storeys down, plunging in a sprinkling of glass, each shard even to the most miniscule glittering with the menacing lights of the city.

Yes, he chose to drop rather than get caught. He chose death rather than be trapped again in a gilded cage of sorts. He chose this instead of slavery…death would be better, because then maybe Iason could be _there _beyond the impending darkness.

Riki closed his eyes. But this wasn't what Jupiter planned now was it?

_…I leave you a part of me…_

Riki's eyes snapped open of their own accord as he saw Iason in the back of his mind, then he turned himself in the air and just…just…spread his wings!

"Wait. What!?"

The Pet could not believe what he was looking at: a pair of black as night wings that instead of disaster, allowed him to take to the air and flee. Only a second for him to figure out the simple mechanics. Only a second to finally get the hang of these new parts.

Riki figured how something must have definitely happened to him after the explosion as he glided to a stop, watching the Droids chasing after him dash and burn, exploding on the streets below. But what? He had no answers. All he could do now was push away, lest someone saw him, lest someone else paid mind. Already, a crowd had gathered far below.

He had never felt relief as he had felt it now, but then there was the fear again, mounting. He didn't die. Which meant he was still going to be someone else's _Pet_.

But then where could he go? The new Pet Ring that bit his flesh would guarantee that no matter where he went, even flew to, he'd get traced. Even the barrier protection of Dana Burn seemed like a ludicrous suggestion…

The Pet fisted his hands, letting the cold of the wind lash at him, the cruelty of ice threatening to break him into foolish tears.

Riki didn't even bother to look back from whence he came. With any luck, he'd be back there sooner than he would want. For now, he chose to fly on…just fly on…never mind where he got to after this.

* * *

**_Yuri: Here's the continuation. Apologies. I was still too busy updating the other two stories I have in progress. :')_**


	11. Chapter 11

Riki's trail was easier to follow than expected, Iason not even needing to activate the tracer in the Ring, finding himself already connected to his Pet in more ways as Neu-Jupiter than ever before. He could feel him pulsing, confused...afraid, yes, evidently in fear which made the Blondie frown in dismay as he glided in mid-air, commanding his own wings effortlessly. Was Riki in trouble?

Besides the feeling leading him on, Iason was following obvious signs...like the trail of the raw and unchecked release of power, the unexpected accessing of his Pet to the System, no doubt, as evidenced by a Tanagura district in total darkness now as he flew through it. He went even higher than the pod cars drifting below, although unnecessarily perhaps, but still just wanting to simply slip past anybody who might notice.

He went on for a few minutes before he felt it, a faint sense of his Riki nearby, the other's utter loneliness which only continued to magnify as he drew closer and closer.

"I'm coming Pet," the Blondie scanned the surface. "Just let me find you. Please."

And the rain slowly began to fall in the merciless world of the capital city.

* * *

Fear. Riki felt it eat at him inside. Fear. That he had been cast from one hell to another and now without anyone he'd loved or known there...

Desperately, the Pet tried to seek some sort of comfort in his thoughts as he sobbed rather uncontrollably on the rooftop where he'd found himself, chased by his own imaginings about the Tower he escaped from. He shivered. Not only for remembering the earlier ordeal, but for the obvious cold and starvation wracking his entire body.

He was alone now and far away at least, the surrounding area seemingly having hid him as the lights slowly died and extinguished themselves when he wished earlier that they would. He however thought it to be coincidental, believing instead in the peace brought about by this darkness.

The wings folded behind him, more obedient to his will than he'd ever been to anyone although now he can feel their weight like stone having been drenched by this unforgiving rain. Riki didn't know what to do.

"Damn you Blondie..." all he could murmur was this curse, finally recalling the incident that had led to all this but without the slightest idea what had happened after sharing a last kiss with Iason, telling the man he thought he loved him. He brought his trembling hand between his legs. "What had they done to me?" and squeezed, feeling the new Pet Ring rub around his organ.

Lightning.

The annoying downpour became a heavier about him by the minute, icy almost as they marred his body, seeping through his bones. Yet instead of seeking any form of shade from it, Riki remained, himself pinned to where he already was, a crying mess in the dark and cold. Could he go back to Ceres still? But what would he find there? Certainly _not _his old life.

The Pet wrapped his arms around his knees and curled into a ball, wishing for once that he was ensconced safely between the sheets with his master, touched by his heat, his warmth...

"Ia...Iason..."

Lightning. And with common nightmares, he simply buried his head.

* * *

Sapphire eyes glared at the vulnerable form of the Pet trembling with some manner of pain, not even noticing that he was no longer alone there, so uniquely _vulnerable_, Iason at last finding him after searching so hard and so long.

He had to call his name, "...Riki..." to which the other immediately opened his eyes, his heart altogether, staring up, apparently stunned.

It was a voice that he knew quite well enough, the timbre of which making his soul melt, his body yield...Sure enough, his senses had not deceived him, had not been pushed to madness at this rate. Riki blinked.

There he stood, right in front of him, the towering form of the Tanagura Blondie Iason Mink, casting him a stare of severity but actually looking with such love and worry behind them. The Man's arms crossed gracefully under the canopy made of his own dark wings.

"Iason…?"

No. They were actually blue, the Pet's mind amended. Like the sky was the shade of midnight even with the moons up. _He _had become like him, or was that the other way around? No matter. It was a moment unexpected. His master. His Iason was alive!

"You destroy part of _our_ beautiful home in the new tower," the Blondie began. "...cast a large sector of the capital into utter darkness, and have possibly shorted out every standing system facility within three hundred miles around you.

"Such trouble. Always wherever you went..." he gestured with a graceful hand, sighing in practiced disappointment, masking how he was feeling inside, how his emotions truly wandered about. "You can't even use those wings properly. How pathetic you look."

Riki visibly shuddered, mind starting when that voice dissipated in the ambience to be replaced by the nonsensical _pitter-patter_ of the rain. It scared him. But when he blinked, the vision stayed. It did not falter. The Blondie of Tanagura who had made him captive both in body and then heart still stood there, waiting, alive, scolding him again with those eyes, owning him with his presence.

If there be punishment, he was all right with it...as long as he was no longer alone.

"Bastard!" Riki immediately jumped, almost wanting to throw his strongest punch at him but instead collapsing into the other's arms, falling straight into his embrace, a mass of wet wings, clothes and all. He wanted to struggle against him, to rebel, but then he simply couldn't, just can't, begging with all his heart, "Why?"

Questions. He wanted to ask the other about many things yet he felt entirely weak for them, managing only the most important one: "Why did you leave me!?"

Iason was shocked, but then understood that rage, those scowling and, yes, still crying eyes. The need for some assurance behind it all making him smile ever so gently, breaking the pseudo-heartless visage he had chosen earlier, to become a Man most in _love_.

Riki was shaken, his tears still well-defined as they ran down his cheeks despite the rain. Lightning again, breaking the sky into shards overhead, but held no meaning as the Blondie simply enfolded his Pet, no second's hesitation, and right into his arms Riki had never felt more safer.

"I'm sorry, my dear one," whispered Iason, the voice of Neu-Jupiter. "I was kept busy and unable to welcome you into waking. I should have been there. You must have been scared."

All Riki could do was sob into those blue velvet robes, staining them wet by the minute, yet Iason could care less as he lovingly ran familiar fingers through those wet tresses, affectionately assuring the other that it was all right, and assuring himself that this was indeed _his _Riki, _finally _with his eyes open and conscious...no longer a sleeping doll.

Crying, Riki's shaking hands grasped onto his Master's clothes as if he would drown without him, having but only one wish.

"Take me…" he pleaded. "Take me _home_..."

* * *

_**Yuri: There was a version B to this chapter, but I opted not to be heartless. I too, like happy beginnings...**_


	12. Chapter 12

It was a dead weight no longer his burden.

Iason was relieved as he sat by his lonesome up his penthouse office, the thought of having found Riki-now a walking, awakened soul, under Tanaguran care again no less-easing the pains he'd been sinking himself into all this time. But they still had way much more to go. The Pet will want his answers, considering he was immediately thrust into such chaos by the situation, likewise, he would want to explain the changes that had taken place with them in the span of the year.

_I wish there was a better way to make him understand..._or better if there be no need to explain at all_._

Lost in his own musings, Iason only later noticed how Raoul had entered, arms crossed, a curt, displeased look overtaking his graceful countenance.

"What's wrong?" the superior Blondie asked, puzzled by such a vexed expression on the other. But it should have been a very easy guess.

"Your Pet," replied his friend. "He's being difficult..."

* * *

Riki just didn't want to be touched in any way by those cold hands, in fact, didn't actually want _anything _to do with the medical droids as they tried to give him sedatives and drugs for calm. He paid no notice as he effortlessly knocked sterile tables, syringes and other paraphernalia off and away, even spat insults upon the face of that _idiotic _Blondie whom he hated just as much, Raoul, as the latter tried to pin him down to restraints.

Then, his will literally 'short-circuiting' the bay area, though apparently he wasn't aware he could, once more Varja, the destroyer, this time, of the environment of Tanagura, before Raoul finally decided that it was dangerous to play his shrink, storming out with an ego bruised and a temper rising.

"Iason, you handle him," he glared at his friend when he came through those doors...

"Don't touch me!" the Master could hear his Pet even before he got in to see him.

Riki had made a mess of the room, and had scared the droids almost to malfunctioning to which he scowled, albeit could not bring himself to be cruel, finding the situation quite the contrary.

"Amusing…" he shook his head. "...how you're already acting_ like_ an _Exclusive _when you've just regained consciousness."

His magnificent form eased into the centre of the room, shutting the door behind, greeted by the heated anger of his Pet however and that mongrel's scowl that just wouldn't go away. One of his _endearing _features, the Master decided.

"Shut up!" Always, the colourful vocabulary. "I don't even know _what _the hell _that _means! And what are these!?"

He flexed his sable wings, making Iason notice how he was already managing to command them. He had that determined face yet again, a face the Blondie had seen many times before, the expression quite challenging and too difficult to shatter.

"Don't you like having them?" he was jesting, but then Riki took that as an improbable insult.

"You're a monster!"

A monster he said?

But then why was the other suddenly clinging so tightly unto him, choosing to shed his confused tears there than anywhere else? Iason felt his heart thumping, in time with the little desperate sobs that escaped the Pet's lips, trembling as he held him fast in that embrace.

"I just want to go home...instead _you _take me _here_."

So that was why.

"Which home would that be," Iason wondered, tilting that gorgeous face up so he may better delve into its expressions, its undisguised hurt. "Is it home to the slums or home with _me_?"

He actually feared to ask, but he wanted to know. He stayed them both in that moment, allowing himself a simple lingering stare into those mystically captivating obsidian eyes as they seemed to dance in the light of the other's emotions, his confusion. He didn't want to seduce Riki, not yet anyway, but instead let the _gentler _side he'd discovered come through. It was an assurance to the other that things were as they should be.

Then Iason did share a kiss. Light. Nothing possessive or loathsome. Just something to cement the guarantee his eyes promised, that he would be there, that this was real, and he would tell him _everything _in their own time.

Slowly, the Master lifted his Pet, and the other, visibly calmer but utterly helpless, welcomed being so close to that steady _strength_. Riki kept his eyes closed, knowing that his weight was no more than a trivial thing to one as powerful as Iason Mink, feeling safe again, somehow.

"Come," the Blondie murmured into his ear, and Riki protested no more, nodding after only the slightest of hesitations and snuggling closer, fingers grasping in blind need, stubborn and refusing to let go.

He just wanted this to be over. To bed. To their marital bed he wanted to be laid. Never had he so wanted to belong to one embrace, scared to ask, so in the next time deciding that he will just let his body beg for it.

* * *

The Council Room was in the midst of discussion, "Then we must immediately look into Military Pet cloning. It's the only way to cater to the current war demands..." when Raoul received a message that immediately made his brows knit.

The other Blondies noticed and paused as he brought up a screen in the middle of their table, showing Iason, carrying a curled and still winged Riki off to somewhere.

A superior presence was he, their _Neu-Jupiter_, and none of the other elites they'd passed dared speak as he bore with him this likewise bewitching creature, an unmoving thing in his arms, Riki seemingly asleep or unconscious or both.

"Are they...?" Orphe trailed as Raoul immediately figured, "It appears Iason is taking him to the tower."

The next decision was simple, to have eyes trail their comrade and see what happened with this _expected _reunion, however, Iason, wanting to keep things private between them for now, as Riki lacked the appetite to humour anyone, let alone his defenceless state was a fragrant flower the Blondie wanted to ravish all by himself, opted to be selfish. The Master could not bear to _share _his happiness with anyone else, as he always had.

He stopped.

The surveillance drone hovered above them like a persistent gnat when he eyed it fiercely, giving it an immediate order.

_Terminate_...

And just like that, the drone died, expiring of its use.

Some of the Blondies sighed in disappointment. Only Gideon found it entertaining. "I see he wastes no time putting his new-found inheritance into use?" before noticing Raoul's displeasure and suggested, "Don't you think this would be a good opportunity to test those theories you've presented to the Council beforehand?"

The statement made the latter turn to him with some manner of silent attention, as if saying in the quiet, _I'm listening_.

Gideon continued: "Don't look so distraught!

"Shouldn't we find out if you are correct, with how Neu-Jupiter and his Exclusive can rectify the damage to Tanagura..." he smiled only too mischievously. "...once they've _mated _under the _correct _circumstances?"

Raoul merely pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes at the proposition.


	13. Chapter 13

Their entrance into the Tower was not met with the resistance intruders would otherwise encounter, the hovering platform carrying them both up higher and higher, Riki, a clinging figure in stark contrast to his Master's form, until they finally reached the pinnacle of Tanagura's strength, the new centre of Iason's own power at present.

Riki shivered inwardly, but slowly opened his eyes, feeling himself shifted quietly. He had actually slept in the short span of the time that they'd travelled, still particularly exhausted, wings retracted and gone now, although he had done it unconsciously.

"Where are we?"

Still in his Master's arms, he glanced around, feeling slow somehow in the semi-dark, disappointed to see they still weren't home and was clear to voice that out, confused, to which Iason only smiled lovingly.

"But then this _is _part of our new home, my love," spoke the Blondie, his cool voice bouncing unto the frozen walls of the unoccupied space, making for itself a splendid metallic echo.

Riki shuddered again, visibly this time. He doesn't know why, but he felt so utterly frozen, as if he had been encased in cold and ice. Never had he wanted so much to be warm.

"You can feel it can't you? The lack here..." Iason asked.

Gently, he settled him onto the same furniture he'd entrusted him onto the first time they came here, when Riki was still unconscious and never hoped to awake, with a subtle intent to _offer _him on it in the same way. The Pet watched, as the Blondie all but clamped his teeth on the tips of his gloves, pulling at two, three digits, before the thing fell loose, discarded immediately to the floor.

Iason slid to sit beside his black-haired beauty, meeting his eyes with his own as he leaned closer. The other's shiver was more on account of the desire he saw so vividly behind those sapphire eyes than any other reason, and Riki looked away, but was stopped by a finger running down the side of his cheek, taking hold of his chin.

A caged angel. Such beautiful long tresses Iason wanted to run his hands through.

"Look at me Pet," it had been the Blondie's old, common order to him. With some manner of remembered fear, Riki obliged, letting that palm caress his face next, the digits sliding to touch the satin of his lips, gently ordering them to part.

"So soft," murmured Iason.

At the words, the Pet trembled, "Ia...Iason…" and Riki automatically fell into a dazed state, a sudden heat swimming up to his form.

His expression was like fuel to the need the other felt, and they weren't even touching _truly _yet. So he has not forgotten? Thankfully, Jupiter had not messed around with _this _part of Riki's _programming_; a feat Iason had laboured upon for years before he could have the other entirely to himself.

"Had you missed me, beloved?" crooned the Master, drawing the younger of them closer to him. No resistance as Riki all but exhaled, eyes falling shut when those arms enfolded him, a hand splaying him open, slowly guiding him to lie down.

"This was Jupiter's room," Iason had whispered, topping his Pet, the latter admittedly _loving _the weight holding him captive even as the hands - both bare now and quickly - moved to tease him through the thin fabric of the plain gown they made him wear.

Riki allowed his body to respond, heating up as it did, naturally and honestly, better than the sort induced by drugs and aphrodisiacs, by synthetic stimulants on _other pets_, the sort that drove Iason to madness, made him fuck harder.

"A-ahn...why! Why are you...hah, hng...telling me that...now?" the _former _mongrel was always one for retorts, used to throwing insults and such every now and then even when they bed together. Albeit now he wanted those kisses. Yes. More of those kisses as the Blondie descended to claim his flesh with his tongue and lips, ripping in one violent fashion the insignificant yet only piece of clothing Riki had on as he began to divest his own blue raiment.

Wet erotic trails, as smooth and as practised as the body beneath him recalled, were bestowed with much generosity upon his skin, the Master's fingers kneading, commanding. Riki threw his head back, a stuttered cry, most delicious and utterly beautiful, escaping his lips.

"I figure I'd tell you that we _killed _Jupiter," replied Iason as he straightened to unfasten the last of the many complicated connections of his clothes, keeping hold of his Pet's stare but did enjoy a quiet check of his beauty's _other _places, as if going through a check list of the parts so as to know whether or not they still summed up to the whole being before him.

Eyes travelled hungrily - arms, chest, abdomen...all chiselled features glowing, leading to the undisguised semi-hardness between Riki's s finely-sculptured legs, waiting for further attention. The news though, cooled the other's ardour somehow.

"W-what...?" Riki asked, but the Blondie had already bent down again, grinding flesh upon flesh now and causing his Pet's mind to scatter, groans replacing any more distinguishable speech, the head thrown again and creating an opening that he exploited gladly, bowing, rich blond hair – the sign of his stature – falling like curtains on either side of him, but hiding nothing to such passionate scrutiny.

The slight dampener on the moment was no problem for a being such as Iason Mink, teasing his beloved with such excruciating tenderness that it burned...as if marks would later be left imprinted upon that luscious skin. Indeed. The Master bit down, hard, the first of more hickies to assert his ownership forming.

Unconsciously, Riki's blind fingers scratched at him, one hand finding some manner of anchor by twining mindlessly around his long, gold hair. Iason allowed those gestures, taking them as a sign together with Riki's other murmurings and sighs as an encouragement. His stamen throbbed.

"Ia-Iason!"

From the way things were going, it looked like all manner of conversation would be put on hold until some form of recess was reached, a union so important at the moment as an ultimate comfort to both Master and Pet...something to seal their common reality...that they had survived and were now free to hold each other again. And that the freedom _extended _beyond what they used to know.

"I love you. How I missed your body. How I missed _you _Riki."

That voice, an Arctic kiss. "I…" the Pet did not know what to say. But he felt the same did he not? He conceded, "As I you, Iason..."

The foreplays were not really something Riki were looking forward to, preferring to be swept off immediately into the throes of passion in a spurt of the moment kind of way, but his Master did not want to have that, choosing to make his hands and lips roam, to once more map and familiarize those soft sections, the indents of the other's flesh, every sinew and muscle.

But damn if he were not as desperately hungry, Riki's heat and scent rising to the sort which drove his senses to the brink of insanity, drawing out the higher functions of a refined Sex Droid from within him, rather bestial sometimes, that Chimeras would even be put to shame at his display.

But then he wouldn't really allow it to go _that _far. Never again would he allow such extensive cruelty as the Pet all but screamed his name, "Iason!" Especially when he knew, as he had known now, that Riki would be forever his…

The System rattled to life. A zing and a surge that reacted to the primal urges as Iason held his beloved tight, raked his fingers over those curves, as lips took in the nubs of flesh that were the Pet's nipples, pinching, scraping, twisting them in fingers and drawing out some of the best hapless sounds from the body beneath him.

Still, he couldn't help but work Riki mercilessly, a hand finally taking hold of that length and stroking, a naked thumb pressing on the slit and letting it ooze, pre-cum hot and all too familiar to his touch, a sign of breath, of life, of consciousness. He further squeezed the head making the other yelp, grasping nonsensically, hair fanning as he bowed then arched.

This would look better on top of satin sheets and silk, on the bed they had in Eos Palace, but for now, seeing the dark-haired beauty writhe and twist, call out and buckle to his touch was enough.

The Pet's body was keen to remember the Blondie's ministrations, responding with much enthusiasm, broken rasps and exhales marking his approval and permission to be completely...taken. The System continued to hum with a renewed vitality in the background.

Iason arched and cried, cock throbbing and bobbing as his wings suddenly unfurled, hand involuntarily and unexpectedly tightening around the other's member, near-bruising it. Riki's own darker shaded pair burst forth from their confines, framing his sweat-slicked body, tips twinning with the other as if the wings themselves caressed, feathers scattering. So beautiful.

Iason wasted no time.

He positions his long-hardened organ right smack between his Pet's legs, poking Riki's lusciously tight hole, only pausing as if to ask, which was uncharacteristic of him. He didn't do these things previously.

"Do it!" an invitation, a challenge. And those obsidian eyes snapped open to look fiercely at him, the expression there almost dangerous but pleading, an obvious yearning.

Raw. So bold of Riki considering this was only their _third _time coupling in these new bodies, the Pet still deserving some stretching as it would definitely hurt like hell. And hurt like _hell _it did.

Iason watched that expression change from pain to pain as he all but rammed it, a classic breaking in, earning tears and broken groans. But damned the tightness was excruciatingly sweet! The Blondie wanted more, his shaft increasing in size, growing, widening impossibly with each thrust, hips moving in with such reckless abandon.

Riki arched, throwing his head back, that slender neck so gracefully stretched for show as his eyes gripped shut, his feet grinding against the leather of the temporary bed he was laid upon, his hands fisting enough to bruise his own palms, wings aimless as they flexed and gave.

"Scream for me Pet!" Iason urged him to let it all out, seeing how he'd now bitten his lip and held back his cries. And scream Riki did, mustered to the top of his lungs, as the Blondie hit the centre of his pleasures, numbing his senses all over with need.

"I-I-ahh...Iason!"

Delicious.

With sobs, Riki was now beginning to meet him as he pulsed through, as he turned him to the side, lifting that leg up and over his shoulder, a possessive hand taking the other's exerting length and pumping it in time. Abrasive it may be, but it was _two _for _two_. Despite the haze, Iason was still mindful of the other, love making him gentler though fiercer still, protective though declaring his ownership all throughout.

The Pet bled, the same way the System Eye glowed red for them, lighting the room...the ultimate offering, a connection marked by heat, blood, wings and sex...

Then the damnedest thing happened. As Iason was feeling his climax near, the cliff of bliss too near at hand for them both, a vision assaulted his senses, overwhelming it, warping the very things he beheld in front of him. It was a memory, of that day.

The Blondie remembered Jupiter once more, this time, managing to appear to him in his usual form to bond _them _together, virtual fingers curling above the Blondie's head as they were curling above Riki's sleeping body opposite.

He had explained everything and now there was no more to tell or do, except the _one last task_ to carry out before fading. He returned Iason's Ring...and Riki's, the super being now transforming it into a befitting ornament, dark like the moons when they eclipsed.

_Hold him, my chosen, and sleep: _were the god's final orders as he forever fused them in the palms of his hands and twining fingers. After that, nothing except peace...

Sapphire eyes snapped open, the Master panting, sweat pouring similar to the latter's condition. Riki had already spent himself, and Iason, with three deeper thrusts rode his own climax out, alleviating the pain inside of his Pet with his blessedly soothing release, warm and perfect.

"I'm sorry. Forgive me my love."

But as he bent down to offer apologetic kisses to him, he noticed something different in the way the Pet's eyes fell low and languid, seemingly in a trance, the body limp but not entirely from exhaustion, palms slack.

"Riki…?"

"Iason, the System," a whisper was all that escaped those quivering lips, and the Master could see what the other saw: ribbons of data and swirling codes around them, and they both knew exactly what these meant.

* * *

_Yuri: Fever hasn't broken yet, not even one bit. But had a nightmare and can't sleep so updating some to get exhausted again...or should I just be lying down? *smiles weakly* I honestly have forgotten how it is to get so sick. _


	14. Chapter 14

There was a pause, utter silence, Iason contemplating as he looked up at Riki, now a hovering _angel _with his wings spread, arms raised as he communicated before the Eye of the System, interfacing with it, expression rapt, lost in what was happening to his body as the all-powerful engineering of Tanagura's central nerve caressed it, mind connected to the very core of the world in an exchange Iason knew to be important and sacred almost.

A Comlink was beeping somewhere nearby but the Blondie was ignoring it, figuring that perhaps it were just the others, and deciding finally that they were annoying in their intrusions - as always. Riki was still wrapped in ecstasy, and it seemed sacrilege to let anyone see how aroused he was as the Pet was still being held by the digitized ribbons of instruction and algorithms, the reaching threads wrapping his beating form artfully.

In some way, although the Master was yet to understand, he felt as if his beloved were connected to his own body despite this separation. As Riki fell in sync with the System's loving hum, it felt as if _he _were the very one holding the Pet; indeed, he felt his entire form shiver whenever Riki sighed, brows furrowing, the sensation pricking his skin, causing his cock to pulsate as if the other was just there in his arms. Powerful, this new _connection_.

The Blondie lounged naked on the furniture, an assuring dampness touching his skin, the smell of their union and the evidence of it still apparent under his fingertips, as a watchful eye stay trained, mind quick to perceive the minute instructions Riki was perhaps receiving now - Jupiter's Will - but then what would the old god have left for him? The Comlink still continued to blink.

Finally, at his wits' end with the persistence of the thing (and whomever were calling on the other end), Iason indulged his brutalism, mentally flipping the switch and shorting the gates for communication, never mind if Raoul and the rest of the Council greeted him with scowls the next time. He was not in the mood to pay them much attention, not when he was still in the midst of comprehending further what was going on.

The Blondie appeared to grasp it all now, the schematics of what Jupiter has left for him, finding it brilliant. He sighed.

Riki looked like a graceful deity, wrapped and crowded by an excess of those ribbons, the very same which conveyed Iason's godhood to him. Intricate, all of it, but simple enough.

At the moment of his death, Jupiter had rewritten the System to compose of only three prevailing layers...the first, was Iason's domain. It involved defences, weapons, active gears, links, the external communicating nerves and all manner of connections existing within the world and Tanagura...things of which the Master can manipulate thoroughly and effectively at will, that much he already knew, even before being aware of how extensive his hold on it was.

The second layer was Riki's. It was where sensitive information and the trillions of repositories for records, confidential data and similar synthesized knowledge that moved the capital and its locations more subtly resided. The Blondie shared in its control, although by the new design, Iason is still unable to reach into it as extensively compared to how Jupiter had programmed Riki to. Thus he needed his beloved's assistance be there anything he ever wanted to retrieve from here, the Pet more like a medium of sorts, although that may cease to be especially after the other has learnt how he could make use of his own domain, which was still yet to be at the moment.

The third layer was the deepest level in the interwoven tapestry of the System...it is a special layer where _creation _can be possible, the Core of the System so to speak, and is inaccessible and so far removed that it took a _special _means to get to it.

To achieve entry to this said Core, the first and second layers needed to converge, to become one, involving of course - and naturally - the direct union of both the Master's and his Exclusive's bodies.

Of course it had to be sex, and in the simplest of terms, was more like a cruel imposition, the act an entire and exact opposite of what was originally the role of the Blondie. Perhaps it was to remind Iason how far he had fallen from grace before his godhood? To remind him that this once-forbidden thing to someone of his stature will now be the one _price_ that would forever culminate his role as heir.

But let it not be said that he did not appreciate it - sapphire eyes looked over the naked form of his beautiful mongrel - if it was with Riki, the price would never be an entirely _bad _idea at all now would it?

Neu-Jupiter slid off the furniture and stood on his feet, thinking that from here onward, life anew would begin for them. He unfurled his wings and gently ascended, bringing himself to the same height where his Pet was, where the all-too-important _being _that coloured his existence now hovered, an Endymion of flawless flesh and pulsing life, entirely his.

This was to be _their _height and no one would ever share with them on it. He needed to protect it, for Riki's sake.

"Come...Pet…"

At the sound of his voice, Riki turned, obsidian eyes blank but acknowledging as he reached his hands, extended his arms, offering his lips which Iason took blithely, pulling into that warm body and grinding against it, hungrily receiving the tongue the Blondie thrust into his eager mouth, alongside the intentions, to allow the _thrusting _of something else into the _other mouth_ existing solely for his Master down his nether regions.

Iason laced their fingers together. Enfolded by ribbons of information, witnessed by the glowing Eye of the System which pulsed and continued, the connection to the Core was opened as the Master and the Pet once more shared in their love...

* * *

It took the most part of the day before Iason Mink surfaced, fully dressed and regal again, a sleeping Riki once more in his arms, wrapped only in the Blondie's own cape, hair tossed over the side of his shoulder rather artfully. As expected, the Council awaited them upon their descent, Raoul in particular, looking as if he had a ton of things to ask and discuss with their Neu-Jupiter.

"Iason -"

But the latter shook his head at that, sighing in exasperation, pausing but halfway through as the other Blondies gave them room. Whatever commentary they had, it _will_ have to wait indefinitely. Iason's patience was running out, and he just wanted further peace for them both for now.

"I'm taking _my Exclusive _home," said the top Blondie, eyeing his brothers and booking no argument from any of them. "And if you want me to do _my job_, I expect of you to leave us be."

* * *

_Yuri: *woozy* Okay, lying down now._


	15. Chapter 15

The Master Blondie was lounging when _he _walked in, followed by the containment units being hauled by mindless robots, which were then stood, each pod, human-sized, on the stone of the garden where Iason had chosen to meet _him_.

Katze did a bow of respect, apologizing immediately for arriving so ahead of schedule although he'd only been an hour or so in advance.

"That is fine," the Blondie waved off, standing to begin his inspection of the merchandise brought him by the former-Furniture. "Are these the ones?"

"Yes. As requested," Katze replied.

Frosted glass. The Master reached his gloved hand and wiped off the thin ice encasing the surface of one pod, peering in but slightly to see the contents, at a fresh, young face, sleeping with the hands folded just beneath the neck.

Light brown hair, soft features, a lithe and almost female build but not so totally feminine. They all looked like dolls in the light of the early morning; an outline of very supple flesh like a pet's but then the truth was far removed from that. These were Furniture. A trinity set. Brothers...triplets. The next stewards of the Mink household.

The Blondie examined each container, eyeing the triplicate faces before him with ruthless scrutiny, inspecting for flaws and satisfied only when he had found none.

"Have they been _made _according to my instructions?"

Katze considered and ran over a mental check list before responding, "Yes. To the letter, Master Iason."

Perfect. If that would be the case then the Blondie was nothing short but satisfied. However, as he looked at his ever loyal _friend_, there seemed to be something bothering the scarred overseer.

"If you're meaning to ask me something then by all means, go on ahead," it was a direct query Katze immediately retorted to.

"Why did you have to _design _them in such a way Master?"

As expected, his former Furniture was worried of the matter as he should be, but that would have been unnecessary. Before the Blondie had requested the manufacturing, he had doubled, no, triple inspected the _design_, ensuring the final _products _would be clean, with any trait, behaviour or gene that posed as unruly or unpredictable removed or entirely eradicated. That also went without saying that they had been made eunuchs, though not through castration as was traditionally done with boys taken from Guardian in Ceres. They were _born _in that state...

But then the design was already perfect to begin with, being actually based on the old god's will, these new 'Furniture' to be created in such a way they could be elites in their own rights. Jupiter wanted to make sure his heir would not have any trouble at all so he likewise left it in his final schemes that instead of _getting _the new stewards from the norm resource, they would be _made_.

Only Iason _added _a bit more into the old god's plans for good measure, altering the structure of these _special _Furniture to become _something else_ upon necessity. It wasn't for the purpose of extravagance. He did this for Riki's sake as easily as it was for his.

"But they are stable, are they not? Besides, the _trigger _for the response has also been programmed properly?"

Katze searched for the answers within himself again, deciding that the Master was actually right. He had been there throughout the process after all. When these three had been created, he was constantly on the monitoring end.

"They are," replied the redhead, yet he still reserved his doubts as he still had more orders to fulfil, strict requests of which he intends to see to until the very end. As he had done _before_.

Silence.

Katze eyed the small life monitors attached to each pod as Iason once more looked over the specimens, a graceful form in his azure suit walking to and fro, finding it amusing how the differentiating aspect to the triplets he requested had only been limited to hair length.

The long-haired one was named Katrice, as indicated on his label. The one with the shortest crop was Kantre. Then there was _he_, Katron, a beauty who perhaps shone more brightly than the other two did although they all shared the same countenance. He had that spark that seemed to glow despite his state of sleep. He was the most _perfect _one.

"Him," Iason pointed. Katze was lost at the statement for a moment. The Blondie repeated, "I want him to be Riki's personal Furniture."

"Katron?"

"Yes."

The redhead understood. It was a rather anticipated choice. Of the three manufactured _Neu-Furniture_ as they had now dubbed them in the labs, Katron was the most intelligent and by far exceeded the requirements by miles from his twins. He was meant to be the ring leader of the three, the Alpha of the Pack strictly speaking.

How Riki would find _him_ however, is another question yet to be answered. Plus it's been ages since the house has had any serving Furnishings, not to mention the couple who now resided here had been asleep for a year that the idea seemed to have been lost along the timeline...But servants are needed. To Neu-Jupiter and his stunning Exclusive, there was a requisite for slaves.

"Then I shall wake them up immediately," Katze volunteered.

Iason merely smiled, looking at the sleeping faces of his newest acquisitions.

* * *

He stirred, slowly, hands blankly reaching for the space beside him but finding it empty, nothing but the faint scent his Master had left and the other little signs that the Blondie had been there...

Riki gently sat up, cradling his head, a sudden ache assaulting his senses and making his head spin, only to realize it wasn't just his head but his entire body that hurt. But it was a welcomed one. He blinked to clear his vision, looking around and noticing that this was not _that _place. He was no longer in Jupiter's Tower.

_"When'd I get here?"_

Soft sheets, an over-sized bed, carpeting and intricate drapery...four corners with an unusual sense of grandiose and luxury: the den of a pampered prince.

"How'd I get here?" the Pet asked aloud, a question meant for himself.

"Master Iason carried you home, Master Riki," but someone supplied him the answer.

He almost jumped, if not for thinking the better of it and instead asking, "Who...Who are you?"

"I am Katron," the other replied. He let the Pet see his rather charming face as he moved towards the subtle light, the mannered expression and that delicate overall feature. He was younger than Riki was, but had a knowing fire behind his dark or chocolate eyes. "...and I am _your_ Furniture."

The response caught Riki by surprise. "You mean you're the Palace's Furniture?"

"No Master. I meant…" Katron made a bow. "...I meant _your personal _Furniture."

The Pet scratched his head at that, shifting from where he was wrapped in the silk and comforters. Belatedly he realized he was still naked, the immediate recollection of Iason taking him many times over last night bringing the colour to his cheeks. The Furniture took note of this with a faint smile that Riki likewise noticed. He remedied the situation, "Pets can't have Furniture..."

"Not unless _you're _Neu-Jupiter's _Pet_," a _familiar _voice responded.

People have been making a habit of interjecting to his queries lately in this way, comments and information getting tossed to him from a darkened corner here and there.

Riki looked around to find the source of that voice, the owner of which easily slipping himself to view, the scar on his face a prominent mark that burned as easily into Riki's memory as was the expression of kindness on his face. What was absent was the signature cigarette.

"Katze!"

* * *

Katron took the time to find a suitable fresh robe and draped it reverently over Riki's shoulders before bowing his head to Katze, "Excuse me Sir" and exiting quietly through the doors to attend to his other chores, mindful to return later for the Pet's _other_ needs if there be.

The Exclusive still could not believe it, seeing the face of an old acquaintance...how long has it been? He couldn't even remember when it was that he last spoke to anyone he knew.

"What are you doing here?"

His fingers blankly grasped the edges of the silken wear left him but the thing annoyingly slipped. Damn, it appears his strength has not yet returned. His head was a little up in the clouds. The Blondie had did him over well last night indeed, refusing to let him go.

"Let me," Katze moved closer and had no qualms about helping, which made Riki flush a bit at the attention. Of course the man had been Furniture before so he was knowledgeable of what functions being one entailed.

"Thanks."

The Pet didn't move from where he was, still just sitting up in bed, his long black hair loose and free. It made the redhead think about the day he unconsciously unfurled those now-hidden wings, and with a smile chose to answer the question flung to him earlier, "I'm finishing up on some installations in the garden, and deliveries. Master Iason's orders. Are you surprised?"

He did however leave out the fact that the installation actually had to do with the house's defences, guessing that whatever it was that was now being _added _further into the interior of the Palace was nothing that should concern Riki. These were to be _secret things _after all.

"Yes. Kind of. I didn't expect to see you," the Exclusive admitted, scratching his head, feeling a little awkward. "Is Katron...from Guardian?"

Katze figured as much that Riki would ask sooner or later.

"No. He was manufactured."

The response shocked the Pet.

"Manufactured? But I thought Furniture were..." he let it trail off.

The redhead supplied. "Not in this case. Your Master wanted more for you than the runts picked up from the Slums."

At that, Riki frowned, instantly glaring. "But I'm also one of those so-called _runts _from the _Slums_, Katze." _And so are you_,he was supposed to add, but did not.

"Sorry," the ex-Furniture immediately apologized, thinking the remark to be a bit excessive in this case. Yet it was undeniable that the Riki now sulking in front of him was no longer _the _Riki Iason picked up from the debris of Ceres years before. Well, not entirely anyway. He was still who he was but merely _enhanced _as a result of Jupiter's favour. "Don't you feel different though? Don't you feel different now?"

The Pet looked at the other with confusion. He did not know what Katze was getting at, and undeniably was just as perplexed. He recalls part of being able to interact with that _thing _he now knew to be called as _the System_, but he totally seemed to have slept through the whole process. He couldn't remember what else happened. Neither the day after Dana Burn nor the days before he woke up. It was all a blur.

"I still don't get all this..." Riki confided to Katze, finding it easier always to talk with the man than he ever did with the Blondie, his Master. "Do you know...what _happened_?"

Katze did not.

"Master Iason could provide you a better explanation, but I do have a job I need to attend to with regard to that…"

More questions in those obsidian eyes. Riki looked at the redhead with his brows knit with speculations, "What's that?"

The redhead smiled and replied, pocketing a hand as he rummaged around for a light, "I'm actually here to tell you about your _Exclusivity_."

* * *

Left alone, the Pet wandered through the floors of their new palace home, recalling with much embarrassment how he'd reacted the first time. Now that he's taken a closer look at things, at their new home and its epic grandness, it seemed foolish of him to be startled like that somehow.

"Master Riki?"

He had not noticed _they _had caught up with him, and when he had turned, they were already standing there, the triplets of the House, Neu-Furniture according to Katze who had earlier given him a head's up about these three. They looked similar to each other yet different, the one assigned to him in particular, (Katron was it?) appearing to have an intellectual spark that distinguished him from the two…

"What is it?" the Pet replied.

"Would you like to eat first? Or would you rather be bathed? We already have everything ready," it was Katron who spoke on their behalf, as anticipated.

Four years ago, Riki could not even contend with the idea of being served or pampered, the so-called 'doting' Mimea said of his Master a thing he technically shunned as a lie, hating the fact when other pets thought otherwise and were so jealous. Now it didn't seem bad at all, especially since these three will help to keep him company from now on…

So according to Katze, he was what was called _the_ _Exclusive_, or a Pet who will live out the rest of his life by his Master's side. But what made him indispensable still eluded him, as many things did lately. And the _freedom_,as far as the term was concerned, for Riki appeared like a sad prospect.

Freedom...

What did that really mean _now_? Was it the same as it meant for him then?

"Master?"

Riki knew he'd drifted, and with good reason. He was feeling a bit _unhappy_ today, a little down...

"I think I'll bathe," the Pet sighed. He wondered what Iason was doing at the moment, and when he'd actually come home. Great. Now he was _thinking_ like a Pet. This wasn't promising. "I want a good long soak, if that's okay," Riki frowned, suddenly weary from something he couldn't understand. He felt lonely. He felt sad to a certain extent...

Katron took mental note of that, seeing the bother evident in Riki's eyes. But instead of saying it, he just gave him a most pleasant smile, as if that alone was enough. In this case, it sort of was...he and his siblings still yet to know what this _special _being before them was like. He was programmed that way after all. To be cautious. To observe.

"Yes of course, Master. Anything you wish," the Furniture bowed, before gesturing towards the direction of the bath, the other two immediately leading the way for them like acolytes.

* * *

_Yuri: The role of the triplets? We'll get to that..._


	16. Chapter 16

Depressed just didn't seem to cut for an explanation as Riki sat drifting into his thoughts, unable to determine how he felt, how his heart seemed to be sinking every day into a darkness he couldn't fathom. The Furnitures were worried, and so was Iason who could do no more but watch his Pet sulk and brood, as he himself had sulked and brooded the first time he woke up from Jupiter's induced _sleep_.

But then it was understandable. For now, the Blondie gave Riki his peace, kissing the latter goodbye every morning, bidding him a good day even as he realized there was a grand possibility that he might find him there on that same spot when he comes back later on. For now, his work awaited, and the long hours between them would be as trickling poison from which he might suffer, counting the minutes before he would be allowed to enfold his Pet again.

"Take care of him," he ordered Katron who only nodded...

Depressed.

Riki didn't even know the reasons why he was in this state, even after finding out from Katze the terms that accompanied his so-called _'Exclusivity'_ and reaping the rewards of it immediately thereafter.

He was to have fortune now: a Palace for a home and grandeur all around, a residence on the highest point of Tanagura; he was even shown the contents of the Exclusive's _account _and the staggering amount contained therein, not even in the Aurora currency other _pets_ used, being the only one allowed of them.

He was to have fame and power: he was the _Exclusive_, and the only existing consort to Neu-Jupiter, envied by all, powerful enough that his will can cause he world to crumble at his heels if he wanted, loved and romanced, in the arms of the most powerful being there is on the planet.

He was to have..._freedom_: he was to allowed to go _anywhere_, Katze had informed, a level choked with all types of Air Cars and other vehicles for when his riles and whimsy got the best of him and he craved the outside, save that he needed to _obey_ some rules and a few other regulations when he did go out, taking that Furniture Katron along with him.

But then where would he go? He has asked himself the same question during their conversation. To Ceres perhaps? But then _why_? Has he not proven that he no longer _belonged _there ever since becoming the rebellious pet of Iason Mink? And certainly, in his _current form_, he did not belong anywhere else but beside the Man.

Ah, that was it! Riki found out that he had been _repaired _by Jupiter before the god died out, returning not only his lost youth, thanks to the years of the Blondie's cruel and devoted training, and the physique once rendered _incomplete_ by his jealous-stricken and _former _life-partner Guy, but _changing _him completely to be like..._one _of _them_.

The Pet knew he was now more similar to his lover than he had ever been, and it made his heart sink into a mire of sorrows. What has happened to the part of him that was...human? The more he thought about it, the more he suffered within…

_What had _you _turned me into? What!?_

Worse, as he sat there, thinking, he could not seem to find any answer. Not even in the Will that was left to him by the dead god. Too bad Jupiter no longer existed for the questions that remained.

* * *

Iason's degree of thought might be points higher than anyone, now coupled with the nearly-complete dominion over the System, he was probably the most intelligent android there is. Yet in affairs concerning the heart, he had no prior experience, had in fact loved only once and had no idea how to nurture the relationship he was now entrusted.

How was it supposed to go? How must he respond? And how does he show Riki how much this all meant to him without leashing him as he had done once?

He figured as much that _love _did not always _supposedly_ involve rampant desires and tumbling into bed for that matter, although technically, it was the most difficult thing to avoid as Riki was now the most desirable of all beings for him on the face of the planet.

But he must at least _learn_ how to handle the other, not as a Pet, but as his mated pair for life...as the half he were wed to by Jupiter himself. Perhaps then he can help Riki get to terms with the new rolethat's been prepared for him.

Katze watched the Blondie ponder, before he broke the silence with a simple statement Iason perhaps did not expect to hear, "It's all your fault, I hope you are aware of it."

The Master turned to him with a scowl, a common resident of his features, but grasping what his ex-Furniture meant and quietly turning away.

"How would that be?" he asked the redhead, rummaging blankly through the reports brought him, stopping when he found that thin sheet of a monitor he'd earlier connected to the Palace surveillance.

A terrible day to do work in the Market: he just could _not _concentrate! And he knew fairly well how the lack of it could cause slight malfunctions in the System easy. Iason sighed.

He wanted to see Riki, but he stopped himself from turning the trailing bots to where his Pet was at the moment, deciding to pursue the conversation he had started with the other occupant of the room, turning back to Katze who was still meeting his eyes in a rather certain manner.

"You started all this. You took him from his home, from his life, and now…"

"Now _what_ Katze?" the Blondie challenged playing on airs, lacing his fingers together and resting them on the table before him, the perfect picture of a Master and Tyrant.

"Now he's become...like _what you are_. And it hurts him that he can never go back.

"He is not even sure what he _is _any more."

* * *

The Palace was relatively quiet, and the triplets were busy with their little chores, maintaining the vast expanse of the house with well-practised efficiency. Riki stood looking at Katron for the longest time now, from where he was leaning stock-still, like a statue, on one of the higher balconies, before deciding to retrieve something from the room just behind him.

The Pet rang for his personal Furniture, the boy surprised that his Master had called for him but relieved nonetheless because the other had wanted something from him.

"Yes Master?"

But Riki was still a silent figure, surprisingly flawless when he sat as this, a picturesque mannequin on a huge velvet-backed seat near an equally large open window. The Furniture figured the Pet had been looking out at the Ocean, or had he been allowing his thoughts to drift again like the flowing waves?

"Master?"

"On the table," Riki spoke, casting his eyes down, looking at the fingers he had rested on his lap.

He turned his palms up, seemingly searching them for something that could lift his wounded spirits, the expression on his face becoming even more morose as he stared at them.

Katron frowned, but doing as he was directed, turning to look at the only table in the room, the other furnishings being a drawer, the bed and some simple decorative implements. The chandelier lights off, giving the room a certain hiding darkness. This wasn't even the Pet's official bedroom. He just strayed here somehow...

Something gleamed on the ornate table, the Furniture immediately realizing what it was.

"Master..."

"Can you…" this was perhaps the only other time since their first meeting that the Pet had again turned to look at him. Such dazzling obsidian eyes, now tainted with an unnamed sadness, an evident confusion.

"Can you cut my hair?" Riki asked, more a request than an actual question.

* * *

He had been held back a few hours over some matters the Council wanted to discuss, and was certainly thinking now that he would prefer taking his Pet to work with him, a change in the atmosphere perhaps better for the other, as it would certainly be better for him, unable to keep himself from thinking of the other…

"Where's Riki?" the Blondie immediately asked when the Furnitures came to greet him, taking his cape and coat, Katrice taking care of the car their Master had left on the private Aeroport, pressing the buttons on a handheld terminal so that the vehicle lowered with him to the level storage beneath.

"He's in the gardens, Master Iason," Katron had answered, further informing that, today, the Pet had not left the house, had not even gone downstairs when he had urged him to the salon that by now had filled with other patrons from the lower levels of Eos Tower Two.

Back in the days it had been Riki's favourite place to _vent_, often scuffling with the other pets or the guards, his ruffian behaviour a common annoyance and a breath of fresh air to all that boredom whether they admit to it or not. Although of course no one would dare quarrel with him now that he was the _Exclusive_.

This behaviour was similar to those days when he'd returned: a Pet over twenty then. No longer. Jupiter had returned him to a former age...but a day older than when he first debuted as his Master's Pet, or even younger...he could not gauge so easily.

"I'll go see to him," said the Blondie, instantly leaving to stray where the Furniture had pointed him to.

And he did find Riki there, though he was surprised to see him sporting a rather _different _look. Short hair. He hasn't seen this in a while. It made his Pet appear like how he had appeared to him four years before, a foolish challenger to Iason's picky interests. It likewise made the Master recall the conversation he has had with Katze earlier. Seemed like the redhead was correct…

The Pet had his eyes closed, hands resting against the railing of the hanging balcony, head thrown up as if seeking the consolation of the heavens and its myriad of stars. The wind was blowing in from an open section of the glass dome, cold, the Ocean not that far away from where their Palace stood.

His lost humanity was something Riki not only _missed _but _lamented_. Perhaps he has been finding this change in them a little too much, thrust suddenly from being what he _was_ to being _this_…

"That longer length suited you rather well," Iason moved in to embrace his Exclusive from behind, hands ghosting around the Pet's waist and pulling him closer, smelling the flowers on his hair. "...but this still looks lovely."

Riki did not move. He allowed himself to be trapped in those strong arms, for the Blondie to nuzzle his neck and kiss, lips moving to further caress the skin he'd found there, making the Pet shiver.

"You look rather pale Pet," Iason noticed, gently urging him around.

Riki this time moved further into his Master's embrace, arms reaching to wrap around the Blondie unexpectedly. He took in the Man's familiar scent, "I'm just…overwhelmed," he answered.

_You must learn to be human, _Iason remembered Katze saying. _Only then would you understand..._

How would he know that? The only comfort he could give the other was this...

"You shouldn't be," said the Master. "I love you. Smile for me?"

He did not. Riki stared at him for a while instead, an undeniable sadness surfacing through his eyes, the expression on his face a perfect mirror of something close to regret.

"Fuck me," he responded, which surprised the Master very much.

"Asking this of me so suddenly?" a gloved hand reached to touch that cheek, easing what remained of the unruly tresses as they fell down his eyes.

The Pet leaned in, moving to offer himself to the Blondie, as bold as the first time he had offered his body to the elite as a payment for the debt of gratitude.

"I've been lonely today," his body was so enticing, coupled with equally inviting obsidian eyes, a heat rising to clearly punctuate the mood. "I need you…"

Iason suddenly just wanted to take him on that offer, wanting to strip this Endymion before him until all that remained was the Dark Pet Ring. To be able to enjoy every part of Riki's anatomy until he was completely satisfied.

"Let me be your cure then," he said, before crushing their lips together in a kiss starved by the day's affairs.


	17. Chapter 17

He watched over the sleeping form of his Pet as the other lay there beside him, thoroughly exhausted and asleep, having emptied himself many times over earlier...

Iason was surprised at how Riki had behaved in bed tonight, as if possessed by a sex craving so strong his own desires and hunger mirrored his lover's own, _begging_ the Blondie in such a lovely way to do him harder, deeper, letting the Master fuck him as possessively as he wanted, even allowing himself to be tied down in a little play of bondage, the Pet ring left to sing between his groins to further the starvation.

In the end, this brought out a hidden demon within his Master, Iason delivering on his word that he would _cure _the other's lonesomeness with his mind-numbing presence and caresses, giving Riki a run for his money. Yet somehow, it also felt the other way around, the Pet ostensibly testing his new-found _endurance_ for _these things_ with none other than the fiercest and most devoted lover in Tanagura.

"More!" he had cried out, even as the Blondie had already battered inside him unceasingly, turning all his thoughts into a persistent red of passion, wanting to be filled, as if the reasons for his being could only be restored when he had tumbled from the very peaks of pleasure that way. And tumble he did...from such a deadening height...held tightly by this beauteous god, the Man's hand squeezing at him until the very last drop. Then doing it all over again.

Iason did not recall how many times they had done it, but he could remember the way Riki moved and trembled every time, the way his organ quivered in his grip, the way the Pet had screamed his name out loud: "Iason! Iason! Ia...son!" as he climaxed, and even before that as he had impaled himself over and over onto the Blondie's own machine, the length piercing him effortlessly as the other received the opened orifice with his own thrust upward.

Only after countless unions had they parted, though after the Blondie had pulled out, Riki had stayed melded in his embrace, dozing off immediately into sleep, drenched with sweat, cum and covering marks once again left on his skin by the insatiable Master who was joined tonight by his rather _equally_ insatiable Pet…

As the moons gave way to the blinding light of day, Iason stayed looking at the face of his beloved slumbering in his arms, indulged to an excess, glad that at least the other was granted this peace.

"Good night," whispered the Master tenderly, kissing his Pet's hair lovingly then waiting as Riki stirred to once again settle into the folds of dreams…

* * *

Two months had already passed since Riki had awakened, Iason quick to return to the life he left off as a Tanagura Blondie although his was now an even heavier burden to bear. His Pet had been having troubles however, though the Master was relieved that he was back to being a little more of his own self the last few days, nonetheless, with some changes of note.

Riki had taken to some unusual interests lately, including _studying _it appeared, often in conversations with Katron about how things functioned in the Palace, peeking into the security framework every now and then, or asking how he may alter this or that in the controlled environment of their home. Sometimes, he would pause, only to awake from the brief intermission to tell the Furniture a node in the house was broken somewhere.

Katron had been patient and indulgent, surprised even that Riki could spot the subtle quandaries in the Palace before they became malignant. Although the Pet found a faster way by interfacing directly and using his will, often unconsciously, to fix the troubles in an instant. There were times when he lapsed off while having sex, taking Iason with him, the two seemingly leaving their gyrating bodies to trance through some part of the System.

His Pet did not fear this, on the contrary, it was almost close to an acceptance of the change, though apparently there were always those moments when Riki hurt because of it, as a human would hurt, becoming the lonely soul he'd already been and getting affected.

One such instance was during that _day_,the day when the amended Pet Laws were to be announced to the general public, Iason waking up to a missing Riki who would have otherwise stayed just right there beside him. Roaming about, he spotted the Pet on one of his favourite seats, on one of the chairs surrounding a marble table, on the plateau overhanging the grand waterfall feature of the Palace's gardens. The Ocean was visible beyond the clean glass of the dome. His beloved seemed to have fallen asleep.

"Riki, are you awake?" he asked.

There was no response. Leaning in, he could see quiet tears streaming down his Pet's face, immediately making the Blondie worry.

"Riki..."

To his surprise, the Pet jumped into his arms, hands reaching to clasp the fabric of the thin robe he had put on in a hurry, trembling, instantly burying his face against his Master's shoulder.

"Tell me you love me…tell me you won't leave me…" Riki's pained voice broke through.

"Why are you so worried?"

The Blondie peered at him with his blue eyes, a reflection of skies and the light depth of the waters outside.

"I feel like I'm dying inside Iason. I'm dying!"

Iason had passionately kissed his Pet, a way to once more ease the utter fear and sadness Riki felt inside.

He reached his gloved hand to his lips at the recollection. He could still feel his beloved pressed there, the memories of these short moments an imprint to his very core.

* * *

The day started in nearly the same way, but as Iason came through the doors of his penthouse office, he was greeted by a stack of envelopes, and Raoul standing with a hand balanced on his hip, already in his robes for the Council Meeting later, just waiting for his best friend.

"What's all this?" Neu-Jupiter eyed the luxurious letters, some made from exquisite papers of amazing shades. A few rare ones in velvety texture. He seemed to have had an idea even before the other Blondie replied, "Invitations, to pet Soirees and some."

Although now the most influential and most powerful of all elites, Iason Mink had been rarely visible in public, difficult to come by even in Syndicate, choosing to be aloof, deciding to be discreet on all possible opportunities. Likewise his Pet, Riki, despite becoming a stunning presence himself and now the butt of every other master's curiosity, was also scarcely, if never, seen outside at all.

Neu-Jupiter sighed in exasperation. "I do not want to carry Riki into these trivial gatherings," he declared. "An Exclusive's body will not be spoilt for such a purpose."

But there were other reasons. Even if the invitations become as a flood that would clutter his table, begging for their attendance to these _common _and _customary _parties, Iason will continue to shun them all. Riki has not fully recovered. The Blondie would sooner bring him to Ceres if he asked it, rather than carry him to these contrivances that he so hated ever since.

"Of course," Raoul was rather quick to agree, which made Iason suspicious. The other had waited until he had seated. "I will have Orphe deal with these so that you need not bother yourself with them.

"However…"

Ah, here is the clincher - as always. Iason knew his best friend well enough to be aware that he'd argue on every chance on any possible topic _most especially_ if it wasabout what their roles as Blondies were. "However, you need to realize that your attendance every once in a while can help _boost _the _trade _as well as the ardour of the unforgiving masses."

The statement made Iason smile. "You're not going to give this issue a rest are you?" he asked the other.

"Because it's a truth you're neglecting. And what would you have to be apprehensive about?"

Iason recalled a similar argument years ago, when the latter had resorted to _threatening _to alter his thinking if he did not cease with the obsession over his mongrel Pet. Somehow, the current discussions they've been having were a bit _tolerable _now than how they had been. Though Raoul was still heavily persistent, and may not stop until he gave him a final negation which the latter wouldn't certainly accept in this case.

He could say 'yes' to it, very easily, but then he also wanted to consider how Riki would feel at this point. The Pet was not amiable to these events. Raoul appeared to have read that in his friend's expression.

"It's not similar to what it had been before, Iason," Raoul continued. He emphasized, "Riki is no longer _forced_ to do anything - you can just keep him beside you. The Exclusive, after all, _is _exclusive."

Those words made for Iason a vivid picture of how life was to be for them both: forever spent one close to the other, which wasn't entirely terrible. The superior Blondie looked at his friend again, wondering that if there be anyone who would be able to persuade him to commit to anything, it was Raoul.

Neu-Jupiter took things into some manner of consideration, eyeing the pile in front of him. He betted there would be several others and even more than that to come in the near future. After all, if there had been masters before who had been interested in Riki when he was just a mere mongrel Pet, certainly they are quite interested in him now as Neu-Jupiter's _Exclusive_.

Iason sighed once more, resting on his chair, a hand drumming on the table. He was thinking about what Riki could be doing at this very moment. Was he still moping...or had he sought the company of his nurse?

He could imagine his Pet walking with him into these Soirees, more or less free and unchained, the Exclusivity his greatest ornament.

"All right," Iason gave his approval after some quiet minutes. "But only _one _event this month. Have Orphe make the selection."

He waved a dismissive hand, seeing Raoul smile triumphantly before making a small bowing gesture, "Of course. Only the best…

"...for Neu-jupiter."

* * *

It was again late into the hour when the other Master of the house had arrived, immediately tended to by the Furniture. They were already making a quaint routine out of all this, and Katze would be proud to hear it, but Iason took it as a sign that things were yet incorrect. For Riki not to have qualms about it, for living in seclusion, and for not seeking the thrills he had enjoyed in the past...the behaviour was simply disturbing, prompting Iason to ask if the mongrel in his Pet had finally been diminished completely?

The Blondie narrowed his eyes. Though he had aimed to polish this breathtaking being to be the diamond he was now, it felt all wrong. Somehow, in every day he had hoped for Riki to just be _Riki_. He wanted him to fight, to struggle, to curse him if it must be. Because Iason knew in that the other would be happier. And _nothing_ was more important than his happiness.

"Home with me but your mind wanders. Have I lost you?" he asked, finding Riki perched on the railing of one of the many balconies in the Palace.

He had been looking down upon the city of Tanagura this time, its glinting lights casting a near-eerie glow on his features, hair tousled by the occasional whisper of the wind.

"Not exactly," Riki smiled for the first time this week, which was just beautiful. "I just...I had a dream while you were out."

"Oh?"

The Blondie moved to kiss him and he let it, allowing his Master to settle standing between his parted legs, hands ghosting over his back and lower, heat penetrating from skin to skin even with a boundary of gloves and clothing in between. Riki had been encasing himself in darkness again, not only in the manner of shirts and jeans that he wore, but in mind and perhaps heart.

Iason understood this now for some reason, perhaps even more than he used to. It seemed the Pet was not the only one who's changed. They both did.

"Care to tell me about it?" the Blondie's fingers slithered, curling over his Pet's covered organ and squeezing, immediately rendering Riki helpless and needing. Goodness…when will this stop feeling so cursedly good?

The Pet swallowed, breathing heavily, holding on as his lover pressed closer, turning into the only anchor that kept him from falling over.

Their kind of love had always been a dangerous one. But it was also the same that could save them.

"A year of peace married to you and far from here…we were so happy," Riki told him. "...but then I woke up, and realized I'd been thrown back here."

He arched, the hand caressing him outside making it in, gently easing his shuddering length out of its confines, the sudden cool of the night causing an unusual sensation. It would be another night of mindless ecstasy. Riki had long ago accepted it to be his saving grace.

"Is that so horrible?" he met his Pet's gaze, now glazed with lust and wanton hunger. Iason began to slowly stroke, to pump Riki's cock in preparation for some later delights. "We have each other. As we will always do…"

He stopped short of the head and teased the slit, pressing for the tiny evidences of his Exclusive's desires, the stickiness a damp his fingers beneath the gloves could feel. Riki cried out. The Blondie's other hand had likewise broken through the band of his jeans and was now feeling for his opening, surgically finding it and worming his finger in slowly, nearly making his Pet jump.

"Would it be so bad to _belong _to me now?" and Iason gave him his first _marking_ bite of the day, licking the reddening skin when he'd left it.

Blankly, Riki had thought of the matter. "I…" he panted, opening his eyes. He was now looking up at the endless stars, having thrown his head back at the ministrations, opening his body to all feeling. "I guess not…" he whispered, before letting his senses be drowned by his Master's storm.


	18. Chapter 18

It was a lazy day at home, a plain-robed Iason had been observing his Riki for the longest time now, as the other drifted into his thoughts again, the Master knowing that _this_ was no good, and that he'd have to commit to some effort to get Riki to come back to him.

Yet he doubted.

What could he do to ease this straining burden from the other when he himself found it difficult with his own? More importantly, was all this _his fault _after all?

* * *

A glorious morning. Half-asleep, the Pet could feel the sun pore through an open window somewhere even before he opened his eyes, feeling the warmth kiss his cheeks. Reluctantly, he awakened, his consciousness stubbornly detaching itself from sleep, to slowly sit up, cradling his head.

"Iason?"

Something fluttered somewhere, he could hear the sound, and felt the feathers falling even before he realized what they were. It stunned the Pet, but his Master had perched on the sill, his midnight blue wings out and displayed under the light of day. The Blondie appeared to have slept as he sat there, though feeling he was no longer alone in wakefulness, turned to Riki.

"Good morning," he smiled, but there was something off about it.

The Pet sat there dumbfounded for some time, before he shook himself off and moved to put on some covering, at least over the necessities. Iason had nothing but a pair of constricting pants on, something he had just recently seen the other don.

"Why are you…" the Pet didn't seem to know what he wanted to ask from his lover. Why was he awake so early? Why were his wings unfolded?

Without moving further, Iason extended his hand, "Come Riki...it's not good for you to be cooped up here…"

His Exclusive was still debating whether he was dressed properly for the impromptu invitation, when the Master simply and literally swept him off his feet, immediately taking to flight out through the large, open window.

"Wait! Where are we going?!"

The Blondie was not one to tell. But he tucked his Pet near, wings strong and certain as they flew to somewhere he did not know. Riki was blinded by the light of day for a moment before he felt the cool surface of glass beneath his feet. They had finally arrived, and they were on the topmost point of Jupiter's Tower, _literally_ and _figuratively_, the highest point of the world.

From the height, all things seemed insignificantly smaller, but significantly bigger, the entire capital and the Ocean beyond it, the tenements and structures made by Normals, Midas and all its areas, including Lhassa where they had first met and where he had offered his body as payment. Even the deteriorated buildings of the Slums were visible, but as they had been made for him, seemingly out of reach still.

Ceres. A year seemed long enough since he was there, yet he had not stayed there at all while he was to begin with. He left his heart in Eos where Iason was, as with his body, the Blondie intended on keeping both.

"Our domain, my prince," the Master stretched his hand and gestured, as if he could somehow contain the entire city in his hand. Ironically enough, he actually could.

"Why did you take me here?" the Pet asked, not quite understanding what reasons the Blondie had for showing him all this.

"Everything you now see...is yours to take. I have the power to give to you whatever it is that you ask."

Riki's brow creased. In some way, he was overwhelmed, but then he had his doubts whether or not this was what he wanted. But then what did he _want_? What did he not?

"Iason…"

"Does this not please you?" Iason asked impatiently. When the Pet looked up, he could see that eerie coldness in those blue eyes. The sort that pulled the fears from within him before. "Does this _not _please you!" again, the Blondie repeated, and Riki did tremble this time, turning away, scorned by the sudden rage in that voice.

Next thing he knew Iason had suddenly grabbed his arm and flung him off, impeccable strength displayed by the Android Male, letting the Pet plummet and fall to earth in such tasteless fashion.

Riki had a split second to overcome his shock and spread his own wings, the dark feathers bursting and scattering, but he found himself unable to control them. He continued to plunge.

"Iason!"

The Blondie dived and in mere seconds, scaled the distance, pulling Riki into his embrace as his blue wings spread to cushion their fall. They hovered, before the Pet felt them lifting again, the strong beat of wings carrying them higher again. Only then was he able to open the eyes he had snapped shut.

"Bastard! Why did you do that!?" he pounded his lover's chest. Not shockingly, Iason neither budged nor acknowledged it, instead, hid his emotions behind a well-practised stern expression.

"Just as I've suspected...you have lost _it_," was all that the Master uttered, before directing himself back towards the Palace with his confused Pet in his arms.

* * *

The feeling was most unusual, or was it that he had not been subjected to _this _for a while that it felt _strange_? The pleasure of it. Albeit this time it was even more brutal than his recollection.

The Pet Ring was set to pleasure, Riki left bare, arms and legs opened as his wrists and ankles were chained to the posts somewhere on the floating platforms comprising the gardens of their splendid home. He was being 'fed upon' by the triplets, Katron, parting the globes of his buttocks as the Furniture's tongue reached and drove into the entrance, fingers earlier parting Riki's sweet hole to be attacked with much enthusiasm. Katrice and Kantre busied themselves up front, two tongues swirling and tasting, mouths sucking and pleasuring, hot insistent fingers prying him further open as they coaxed him nearer to orgasm more and more…

Riki, lost in pleasure, climaxed a third time this hour alone, spurting his bodily juices unhindered onto the marble, but the kneeling acolytes were not yet done with their worship, once more renewing the tortuous cycle at the other _god's _orders.

"Why...hng..." Riki barely managed to cast his protests above the three ravenous Furniture rousing him below, working as complements to the vile Pet Ring to bring him once more to the same state of helplessness. "Why are you...ha-ha-haaa-feeding me to-uhn..hng...the Furniture?-aahh...!" and he arched, Katrice taking him deep into his throat n one engulfing sweep.

Iason merely smiled, "They are _serving _Furniture are they not? And you are the _Pet of the House_. Unless you want me to get another pet to serve _that purpose_, I suggest you enjoy this."

The statement cut deep in him. "Da-Damn you-ahhn!" but the Pet could do no more but pant and writhe, senses pushed to overloading as they continued.

Iason watched intently, sitting still with the unreadable face he wore years back when he oversaw his mongrel's _education_. Riki could not understand what had happened, and why the Blondie seemed to be reverting to the _old _being that he used to be, the cruel man-handler who took pleasure in his suffering, who aimed to break him bit by bit.

The Master moved. He let the pleasuring continue, the two Furniture parting to give him some room below but not stopping, reaching a hand to lift Riki's face up so that he may look at that lovely expression.

"How does it feel? To be prepared for me in such a lewd manner?"

Riki bit his lip. "E-Enough! Please!" he begged, crying out marvellously, somehow knowing it was amongst the things that pleased Iason. As expected, he would do anything to avoid this further embarrassment, a bruise to his _mongrel's pride_ if there still was one left. _Good_. It was becoming more and more like how it was _before_.

"Are you angry?"

Iason snapped his fingers and the Furniture immediately ceased, heads bowed and moving away, standing up when they had been a distance off and instantly disappearing, leaving their Masters to their own. Only then was Riki able to catch his breath, in large heaves, having drowned. But it wasn't long before the torment started again, this time, by the hands of the _Man_ who had said he _loved _him.

"Ahh, no!" Riki screamed when it was the larger penis of his Master that he felt penetrating, somehow not appreciating the situation, more offended than anything that Iason was taking his pleasure by force when he could just asked without the need for coercion.

"Iason what are you _doing _to _me_!?" the Pet moaned aloud, pained, not able to get his body to _give in_ to the sensation as the Blondie proceeded to fuck him roughly, the Pet Ring changing its functions to hurt, this time acting as a stopper to his impending release. No. Not _this_!

It made Riki remember the days by which he was born to this fate, those endless nights in brutal seclusion, battered as he was now being battered, moved to the heights of pleasure and then thrown over repeatedly, feeling the utter disgust...these were days that he did not want to relive.

"Please...haaa-stop this…I beg you…"

The first of many tears slipped through the Pet's tightly shut eyes, the rain of long-kept memories bringing with it a suppressed trauma at every thrust, every piston of the Blondie's hips. Especially when Iason called out to the Furniture nearby, "The aphrodisiacs Katron."

The horror. So there were some being kept in the house, Riki stared, stunned, before the Master snatched at his hair and pulled at it tightly for him to see clearly the vials and bottles being laid before them on a table. Iason had stole a hand to fist around his plump erection, squeezing the head, where only the tiniest of cum escaped.

"Why...why?" the Pet cried. "Why have you suddenly changed? Why are you being such - an asshole!?"

Riki gritted his teeth, feeling his limbs weaken. He trembled and shuddered, seeing Katron chose a particular concoction he knew very well to be a strong dose Iason personally made for tormenting_ other pets _during the soirees. It was never used on him. Well, not until today perhaps.

He felt something ease down his spine. But the sensation just pooled and hurt between his legs. Not to mention at each hammer, Iason was hitting that spot inside him that further added to the predicament. He screamed again, wanting to get free but couldn't. It was becoming sore where he had been tied tightly, he might actually be bleeding there now.

"Do you hate me?" the Blondie's voice was an arctic kiss, cold and belying the heat by which he embraced the other as he whispered those words. "Tell me. _Tell me!_"

Why was he so persistent? Why did the Blondie ask to be loathed? Riki did not understand it one bit. And behind it all his heart was slowly shattering, torn with things he was being _forced to remember_ and the things _he had awakened to_. There was a clear margin between the two, a space that was so great he couldn't see an end to it.

_I love you…_

Was that really what the Blondie had said? Then why could he feel Iason's fire ripping him to shreds now? He did not answer. He didn't like what all this was making him feel!

"Let's test your mettle with this one," and Iason reached for the metallic container he was offered, purposely fisting harder, causing the Pet to yelp and flinch, now aching in various places.

This was ridiculous! Riki felt a different manner of heat rise up his entire being, thinking how Iason was becoming unfair, treating him terribly again when all had been better. It made him angry to the core, a long-forgotten animosity towards the structure of society in general reaching to the surface.

"Stop it!" Riki reacted. He struggled and fisted his hands, glaring up at the Blondie with such hate in his obsidian eyes, it was acid. "I said STOP!"

The System fluctuated, the entire of Tanagura erupting with the beat of his emotion, the sudden surge temporarily shorting out some places that darkness ensued for a few minutes before the lights came back on. All the elites panicked, as their eyes trained on Eos Tower Two, nervously wondering what was happening there now.

Raoul cussed noticing this suddenly, "What the-"

Only then did Iason cease, feeling the anger coursing through the body he was buried in, letting Riki go and pulling out, dismissing Katron who left without words but with his own worries...

The Pet was gritting his teeth. "You bastard!" as he cursed him. "You damned monster!"

Iason waited for him until he stopped pulling at his restraints, letting him spit out every possible insult he could muster, those obsidian eyes looking like those of a soul ready to kill the Blondie as he moved to stand before his constrained Exclusive.

Riki asked for an explanation, wanting to smash the other's brutally beautiful face to shards, remembering the bitter qualities in the other that he found entirely unacceptable, inhumane. But Iason only said, "There you are…_my mongrel_…"

…_my mongrel_…

Riki stopped, time seemingly pausing enough that he could see the beads of sweat slowly drip from his face, connecting with the marble where he had earlier spent himself. And just like that, the truth dawned on him suddenly like water pouring over. Why has he not realized this? For a moment he stared...

What was it that Iason could not do _back in the days_, but shatter his indestructible will? The same will he'd lost ever since finding out that he'd been..._changed _by Jupiter.

_Iason…_

The other looked down upon him with those same cold eyes, lifting his hand to turn the pain up with the Master's Ring. Riki screamed, but this time, he would not be fazed.

"Cut the crap Blondie!" he threw back. "Would you really go _this far _to get _me back_!?"

The response stunned Iason and broke his well-played visage. The Pet saw through his disguise and finally understood how secretly Iason had been getting hurt too. Because he allowed himself to drown in his own miseries, Riki knew now that he had dragged his beloved _down_ with him.

"I'd rather be a tyrant who provoked you needlessly," said the Man, aborting the rest of his intentions as he turned off the Ring, reaching to soothe his Pet's organ.

He took Riki in his hand and proceeded to stroke, pumping in a manner the other remembered better as the Blondie's more loving, more affectionate touch, making him buckle into the grip easier and lose his cool, though not entirely as the fire of his anger still persisted. He still wanted to know!

"What do you want of me?" Riki demanded even as he thrashed into gratification, swallowing before his lips parted in the most rapturous of sighs. "We are..._the same _now, doesn't _that _please you? You have me, uhnng, _forever _- doesn't _that _please you?" He tossed his head back.

To his surprise Iason replied, "It doesn't…" tightening his grip as a few more strokes from him made the Pet come finally, falling into his arms when he had released the chains, releasing Riki at the same time to finish off the rest of his climax with his body buried and holding on to the Blondie. He could feel Riki pulse, deliciously shuddering in his clutches.

"It doesn't," Iason whispered, body sweating as Riki was and trembling as he was. "Because I don't want of you to lose your _humanity_."

Riki could not believe what he was hearing, but this was a confirmation to what he already knew to be true perhaps. He has indeed allowed himself to waste away the last few months since waking up in this new form and circumstance. What was he doing to himself? And more importantly, what was he doing to Iason?

He had filled his beloved with fear on his behalf. Iason simply loved him too much to allow it to go on.

"Ia...Iason…"

The Blondie admitted defeat, "Perhaps it was wiser if I had not accepted Jupiter's proposition. It was selfish. I know now that I'd rather have lost you _as you were _than have you like this and watch you suffer silently every day."

It was a mirror of his own suffering, believing himself to be the culprit of Riki's pain. "Perhaps you'd been happier," said the Blondie. He did not like how it made him feel so terribly guilty...

With that, Iason let him go, certain that Riki would find his footing easily. He had survived _worse _than this from him in the past so it was easy to just turn his back without another glance and leave.

Rich golden hair fell pale as the dome's outer shell opened into the late afternoon. How long had they been at this they were both unsure, but one thing was clear, Iason did not want to go anywhere with his intentions any more than he already has.

"We're done here. Go to your room and I'll have Katron attend to you," again, that cold voice, but a tinge of sadness beneath the surface of his words.

He did not know what to do next. He, the Blondie who could foresee and plan Tanagura's future so easily, ironically could not make a plan to work with his own..._feelings_. Since when had his attachment become so complicated? Was this what being _heartbroken _felt?

Truly, as Katze had suspected, he was a novice at this, and he had only known many things after acknowledging that he indeed _loved _Riki, beyond the pet stature, beyond life itself...Yet now perhaps, it was time to finally let it be.

"Leave," he ordered.

Yet even before the master could go any further, even before he would have thought to give up, Riki ran to him, surprising Iason when the Pet all but embraced him from behind, holding on tight, "Don't go" as he clung to him for dear life.

"I love you. Do you not love me?" Riki begged, trembling, not wanting the response to be a _no_. He would die!

Iason's hands fisted, wanting to reach for his beloved, to enfold him, to hear his voice and his heart beating. Yes. He still had his beating heart and shockingly enough, Jupiter had likewise given the Blondie one.

The Master gave in. To a now crying Riki who feared to lose his love, he gave in, turning to face the Pet, lifting a hand to caress that beautiful face, trace the outline of his lips with his fingertips, to slowly ease away those straying tears. He felt the guilt again for his earlier actions, that overpowering sense of affliction just looking at how far he'd actually pushed it this time. Though it was a necessary evil. Bottom-line was that he wanted Riki to go on. There was no other way.

"So much," came his reply, true and simple. "Too much that I can never imagine losing you again."

But beyond that Iason feared to admit that if he lost Riki this time - to anything, even his own self - he himself would crumble. Who knew what would become of Neu-Jupiter, for there would be no _pet_ or other fitting enough to take this beloved mongrel's place. Riki was the only one...

The Exclusive understood that now somehow, as this once cruel Man looked at him with eyes no longer the dead blue that pretty much made up what he was, what _they _were, as synthetic creatures that lacked the emotion he now so easily displayed.

Gods, he loved this Blondie, and similarly, Riki would throw himself into the fire to be by his side. Had he not already done this?

The Pet beseeched him with a kiss, realising what he had been taking for granted. He swore never again. Never again would he allow himself to be drowned in his own self-contained destruction without considering what another would feel, especially when there was _someone_ who would despair greater than he would in the process.

Now that he thought about it, he realized this was somehow similar to how he and Guy eventually ended up. He could not let that happen again...

_...Iason..._

There was never any ill-will to begin with. The action made the Master glad, returning the kiss with a deeper sense of his own affections, sharing in the mutual understanding, as he could find no words to measure up to such sincerity...

* * *

They had just finished a round in the comforts of their bed yet Iason was once more gunning for another, rolling Riki's nipple as a restarting stimulus, loving the way his Pet ground himself up, an apparent hardness again beginning, as heady moans escaped his lips like prayers. His Exclusive's hand never stopped groping about, as if by that he could fully anatomize his lover. In a strange way, it did actually.

"You and your rampant desires," the mongrel panted, anticipating the satisfaction that would again culminate in just a bit.

Iason kissed his way about, like the blind using his mere touch to see. "Your body might have been altered by Jupiter, but the spirit and heart," he touched that part on Riki's chest. "...stayed the same. You are the same..."

The Pet smiled at him again, a genuine show of contentment. "Sorry. If I had been very difficult. I never thought you'd actually hurt because of me."

Iason answered that with more of the touching, running his hands lower to capture the erection throbbing between those legs, rubbing it together with his own under the sheets.

"I love you," said the Blondie.

Riki laughed. "I know…"

But there were things that still bothered him about his transformation - the wings and all, the lack of craving for cigarettes and alcohol, even the severed erection that was now whole again. "You're right, it doesn't feel different, but…"

Iason looked up from where he was about to descend and devour his Pet. Somehow he had an idea what the latter would ask but sought to clarify it anyway. "But what?"

"Has it been that much? The change Jupiter made in me, I mean...Am I not me any more?" Iason was further surprised by his next request. "Can you help me know the extent by which Jupiter had _repaired_ me?"

The Blondie paused for a while at those words. Then he sighed. It seemed this was likewise inevitable.

He conceded, "All right

"I'll arrange it with Raoul for you as apparently, we need to put those questions of yours to rest."

Riki felt relieved. "Thank you," and he reached to caress the Blondie's face, his fascinating hair, the other returning the gesture of a warm smile all his own.

It was this feeling...this undeniable feeling that had long ago changed all the _sex_ between them into pure and heavenly_ love-making_. It was the same thing that bridged the space between Master and Pet, a mongrel of the Slums and the highly-regarded Blondie of Tanagura. With it, the difference no longer mattered nor existed. they were just in love...

_"I love you," _it was Riki's turn to give his vows, without hesitation and with a willing heart, before crying out loudly and shamelessly as his only _Master_ descended to take him...

* * *

_Yuri: *prepares to send an invitation __via Orphe __to the couple for a Pet Auction* **This** should be fun._

_Last chapters of Storia Duwa. Then off the Storia Tatlo: the Days of Conflict (or something like that)_


	19. Chapter 19

The next days in the Mink household had been easier after that incident, although it might have only been a little step, a nudge for the Pet so to speak, trivial as it may, that now Riki seemed to be better at snapping himself out of his depression when it starts, thankfully choosing to be more enthusiastic…

Though scheduled for the check-up he had requested, the busy work mounting to repair the rest of a year's worth of damages in the System put the appointments on hold, though the Pet did not seem to mind much, busier himself with monopolizing his way around the house and learning more how to use his newfound graces…

Riki was _considerably_ happier, a divisive little conniver who was never spoilt but run his course around things the way he wanted it again. Thus Iason was not at all surprised when he asked if he could leave for Midas and buy himself an Airbike. The Blondie of course gave his permission, though for _some reason_, the escapade gets postponed whenever he pulled the Pet aside. And the thought of a new Airbike had been left to dust somewhere after a few days of hot and steamy respite.

It had been a week now, Iason taking a short leave of his responsibilities to spend time with his beloved…

In the same span of time, both had managed to develop a silent, two-way process of learning, Iason likewise beginning to understand from his Pet how _real _relationships went, had become more sensitive now to Riki's emotions, careful not to forget himself.

However, jealousy seemed inescapable. Because he had given the Furniture a taste of Riki, he was now more mindful of their presence and somehow chary, narrowing his eyes whenever Riki spent more of his time asking the triplets favours, favours the brothers _loved _to cosset him with, happy the same way maybe that the _Pet of the House_ was feeling better.

Yet as it was with Daryl, Iason did not want them to be so familiar with Riki. Even the natural _purpose _of the Furniture to a certain extent was not to be exercised in any way. He was the one who will fulfil Riki's desires if there were any more; after all, didn't he possess a _body _very much capable of it now? Of sharing _everything _with his Pet that is. A body that _feels_.

Yet he could not really help it…

On one particular instance, when Riki and Katron poured over a playlist of synthesized tunes the former wanted to listen to, having spent several hours in the Furniture's own quarters, Iason actually found a way to drag the living ornament outside and give him a beating, stopping only when he was contented and when Riki begged him to. Afterwards, he swept his Pet into their shared bedroom, locked him in, and spent what remained of his impulsive outburst on fucking the other senseless, marking his territory with much passion and possessiveness.

Riki found it hard to get up for the whole day the next morning, Iason however had apologized for it, palming the blame over to the stresses of work which was not at all true.

Then there was that instance when Riki himself _almost_ got the beating again, after Iason had chanced upon him while he masturbated, lost in his fantasies on the bed, pants pulled down and off...much like _that _time years back.

Though there was no virtual image of a bitch anywhere, the Master still eyed his climaxing Pet with suspicion from where he observed him in the dim light, unable to get his head out of the idea that his Exclusive _might_ be thinking of someone else. Though his doubts were shunned as absurd finally, when upon the final throes of his release Riki had clearly cried out, "Iason!" arching into his own hand as his heat slowly rose then shot before gradually dissipating, bringing him down to earth with a satisfied smile on his face.

Not as satisfied as his Master's, who stepped into the light after letting the Pet take his breather, reminding himself of how petty he'd become finally, replacing that hand with his own in an instant, pleased that he had been mistaken. Ironically.

"You should have just waited for me," Iason commented, before lowering himself on top his Exclusive, in his tailcoats and all, beginning to once more stimulate his Pet. He hasn't even taken off his cape: he was just _that _impatient...himself shocked that Riki can pull such out of him!

Riki on the other, felt rather embarrassed, getting caught in the act, but was glad to have the Blondie home. He just flushed and forgot, wrapping eager arms around his lover's strong shoulders, easing hands to twine through the enchanting mane he had on his head.

"Will you fault me? You were taking your time," the Pet whined, only for his lover to muffle that with his deeper kisses…

Riki had grown a new appetence for flying, discovering one morning that the Palace was even _bigger _than he imagined, the actual exterior perched on a separation above the lower levels beneath it, surrounded by even grander gardens and other ridiculously massive structures and art pieces.

He's only just seen one side of their home! The cage so it appeared, when their domicile was a small city in fact. He asked Iason about it during dinner.

"I had the place extended," the Blondie told him. "You were just too busy brooding to realize it." And he had laughed.

In truth, the Master actually took the levels below their home and had them demolished, then transformed into an outer court worthy of a throne for Neu-Jupiter and his Pet, everything done efficiently by the multitude of working bots and droids which incessantly toiled until its completion.

Since Riki had managed to lock himself within the insulated layers of the Main of the Palace, refusing even to go anywhere, he wasn't able to see the outcome of the renovations until just recently, when he had ventured further from the inner bowels of their _nest_ and opened himself to the System more and more.

Now by the looks of it, Riki was impressed, though the Pet had scolded himself mentally for not noticing, and for allowing himself to be limited to where his _inanity _had forced him to stagnate for a while. But more important than that was that he had discovered where the garage was, becoming as a kid in a candy shoppe, ogling at the numerous air cars there, just as Katze had described them, now he _remembered_, only disappointed when he couldn't find the one thing he was half-expecting to be there.

"Great. No Airbike?"

He rolled his eyes. Of course, we're talking elites here. Who amongst them rode around in Airbikes? Certainly not his Neu-Jupiter...

But this was no big issue, really, especially when he discovered a new use for the vast space, as a place to test his sable wings, growing more and more confident and _defiant _with them yet just as loving by the day. Somehow, Iason knew his Pet will come to love flying, will perhaps be seduced by it as something more attractive than racing, though Riki appeared to still crave the rev of engines, requesting for that Airbike again, with much devotion to the sport after some long hours in the garage and noticing there was none there.

But then the Pet should have known by now, how he can reach even greater speed and height without the aid of any contraption, but just using his own sacred wings…

On the side of work, Iason was pleased to learn that the System had become _healthier _now upon his Exclusive's _semi-healing_. It actually came to the point that the Blondie had thought that if things stayed like this for eternity, then he would truly be _happy_ forever. But then that was not the case. For while they revelled together, war was impending, the same threat that used to haunt him when he was yet a mere tool of Jupiter, now doubled when he _became _Jupiter.

He knew their enemies were plotting; somewhere they had their traps set, and it will only be a matter of time before they sprung into action. Even difficult was that he now had Riki to protect, the status of Achilles none-changing despite being elevated to a higher degree.

If another incident like _Guy _happened, this could spell doom for them all, not only _them both _but the rest of Tanagura. It was indeed a predicament, especially since he certainly cannot coop the Pet here all his life. It's been a long time since they had ascended and must, sooner or later, face society as the chosen pair.

* * *

Ever since discovering the larger part of their home, Riki had now become a constant fixture in the exterior, Varja, trapped in a decorated cage but seemingly oblivious, though sometimes he tended to still drift into his thoughts. Just like today. He had sat there for the longest time on one of the smaller overhanging platforms, seemingly vanishing without a trace and prompting the Furniture to disperse, searching for him all over the place.

"Master Riki! Master Riki!"

"Please come out Master Riki!"

"Master Iason will be furious!"

As much as he understood the triplets' predicament, for the moment, he wanted to be alone. But no, he was not moping about. He was just wondering. From where he was he could see straight towards the direction of Ceres this part of the Tower, see the strip of forgotten highway that led to what would have been a _utopia _devoid of Jupiter's intervention, now a cluttered, deteriorated sector that would fall apart completely if not for the Black Market supplying for it the necessities, even the stout and drugs it craved for…

It was a place he had been part of, now just a memory, alongside his reputation there and his..._friends_...

At the back of Riki's head, he wanted to know what had become of Bison, especially now that he, and yes, Guy as well maybe, he was unsure, had departed from them.

What had become of the old gang? Are they alive? Did they still occupy Bison's previous haunts and had held unto the 'sleeping dog' reputation for the sake of it or had moved on finally?

Or are they dead?

As they had perhaps conceivably believed he was now, long gone, when in truth, he was well and alive, and well-loved…he did not know really. His absence had been more than just physical after all.

He was a rare case among mongrels. The _one_ who _made it_ to the _very top_. On the lap of splendour and the fulfilment of dreams boys could only make up while in Guardian and would rot to nothing more but shambles by the time they were set _free _in the Ceres colonies. But he made it. He proved something in a way, although the road to here, like the highway to Ceres, was as treacherous.

"Master Riki! Please show yourself!"

Riki laughed to himself. The Furniture were getting agitated, and he had once had this image that if they were troubled enough to a certain degree, their heads would explode. Funny. Mad imaginings, all this. But that was before he found out where these _living _furnishings actually came from. He was assured however that these were not Guardian-bred; Katze attested to it. Speaking of whom, the man had not visited in a while had he?

The sun had already set, the last colours of dusk fading on the horizon and pretty soon, by dinner time or later, Iason would come home. Riki, believing that he had been _gone _long enough, stood and stretched his arms, the bare top he wore riding with his muscles.

He felt great today, enough that he could maybe, just _maybe_, ask Iason to let him visit Ceres? The problem was that he didn't know how to begin…

He smirked, and wondered if even _that_ would be too much for an Exclusive to solicit perchance?

_I'll figure something_, he told himself with a smile before stepping off the edge and spreading his wings to get down.


	20. Storia Tatlo, Days of Conflict

_Someone was accessing the Tanagura archives..._

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/Neu-Jupiter Palace \ Eos Tower Two \ Tanagura/

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[Notable Residences: Neu-Jupiter \ Exclusive - Private]

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[Description Study. Source: Unknown]

The completed Palace of Neu-Jupiter is exaggeratedly large, made up of two areas called the Main and the Court respectively, both fully-integrated into the central System of Tanagura also known as Jupiter's System, but functions independently of it. It is said that the pinnacle residence is of a _pure _atmosphere, having its own massive Filtration Components hidden within the framework of the House, the sterile shafts pushing cleaner _air _ in to circulate within the areas, simulating a _natural _environment typical outside only safer and devoid of contaminants. It also holds enormous backup reserves to keep the Palace running even if the rest of Tanagura shuts down during emergencies, the Tower itself taking advantage of solar and wind made viable due to the structure's height and underwater currents from Ocean a short distance off.

Other frameworks are likewise made _unique _to the Palace, but for security reasons shall not be disclosed in this article.

The Palace is maintained and cared for by the triplets, from the idiosyncratic Trinity Furniture Series, named Katron, Katrice and Kantre, and the horde of mindless machines under their control, running everything via strict schedules which included but are not limited to that of Iason Mink, his Pet and Exclusive, Riki, and their own. Specifications regarding the _manufacturing _of these three special furnishings have been made confidential and we bear no further record, though it is stated that as part of these said _specifications_, none such Furniture will ever be allowed to exist in any other household, the creation thereof forbidden save upon the request of Neu-Jupiter whom holds all rights regarding the making of the Trinity.

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[Description Study 2. Source: Unknown]

The Main referred to in this article is actually the _main structure_ or house of the Palace, a three-floored building made up of private rooms, guest areas, kitchens, among other sections, and the _avant garde_ Floating Garden built on levitating plateaus, open platforms and some hidden alcoves teeming with plant life and hand-picked Flora. It was here that the Pet was first accommodated when he was yet asleep.

/pause/

All floor plans, interior designations and layout are filed as confidential. Access denied.

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From the Main, a continuous balcony opens to the outside, overlooking the outer suburbs of the city below, Ocean beyond, and the Aerospace Port a little nearer that. The Palace itself has its very own private Aeroport used by the Blondie Master to get to and from work, in turn connected to an even lower level which is the garage where all vehicles owned by _him _are stored out of sight.

The Main is built closest to the outer dome of Eos Tower Two, and for its protection not only has the barrier and shield of the Tower, but also three separate layers of reinforced shelling (construction unknown) that would stand to any bombardment from the outside and a web of sensors that are linked to the _secret _defensive components of the house, supposedly including the security droids (hundreds of them - the same that chased the Exclusive out the first time) and _something else_ which Neu-Jupiter himself personally had an unnamed contractor install, in cold sleep, hidden beneath the one of the features in the centre of the Floating Garden and two more supposedly ensconced in its epic chandelier. Further details about this have been kept confidential for evident reasons.

Rumours have circulated that in case of an imminent threat, the Palace executes what is called the Lotus Procedure, whereby the structure automatically seals itselffrom the inside-out, deploying its various defences until the threat is neutralized if not entirely eliminated, though this is yet to be verified.

/Skip/

The Court on the other would be considered as the _exterior _of the Palace, though is actually more of a showcase area for other bigger gardens and water features and is encased by the rest of Eos Tower Two's large glass circumference, where infinity pools surround all five of the constructed hanging gardens and their individualized outdoor furnishings, connected one to the other via suspension bridges, which were in turn connected to the topmost portion of the Main. There were also teleportation gates, though they have been rarely used by both Master and Pet as they are believed to just _fly _to where they wanted to be. The teleportation gates are more for the use of the Furniture or visitors though it has been confirmed that the Palace is yet to receive any of the latter at present.

/Skip/

The Palace is the exact opposition of the image that had been once a standard of the 'metallic city' of yore, itself so far removed from what had been the boring clean of the old god's domain, though is ever as efficient and as precise, all tasks involving the superior Blondie's new domicile carried out by its caretakers with still the same promptness and efficacy or even more, all affairs therein conducted like clockwork.

But it is still a fact that the new Jupiter loved this extravagance, loved to treat his newly-opened senses to grand things such as a burst of colour and grandiose, or at least his own personal desert of roses to which his Pet might also find his amusement, given the belief that when the Exclusive was in slumber, he had likewise developed an aesthete's taste, the old god aiming to inject some manner of culture into the Pet, to what extent though, this is yet untested.

Bottom line, the hierarchy had already been shaken, and despite the refusal of some elites to let go of the monochromatic existence in bodysuits and minimalist-decorated rooms and houses that they had been accustomed of in the past, like this Palace and just like Neu-Jupiter, Tanagura will continue to change into a kingdom its Blondie Master will eventually shape it into.

/End Specs/

"There seems to be little information here, but the Tower is apparently built to have some of their most advanced fortifications," _said the voice after receiving the information, discussing this on the phone with another dubious character. _"As expected."

"Then the best chance would be when _he's out_? Too bad his days at Apatia are long over. It would have been easier..."

"I don't think it's wise to attack the very nest. Not when it's so well-taken cared of. Do you have information as to what had happened _exactly_ during _his_ absence? We might get clues as to how we can take this Neu-Jupiter off the picture."

"We don't. For some reason, we can no longer hack into the System now. Should we try getting a spy in?"

_The other considered and for a while thought carefully. _"We need to test the waters first before we do that," he advised. "I'll send word in two days time."


	21. Chapter 21

Iason sought a change of scenery and chose one of the smaller plateaus of the Court, proceeding to strip Riki naked the moment they landed on its large, weaved bed-seat, the canopies and silk draperies left open to the breeze. Between the posts and its stringed jewelled trimmings, the Master began to make love to his Pet, whispering his deep sense of affection, refusing to let the other take him on all fours as the Blondie wanted to see the reactions forming on his face as they progressed, as he thrust upwards into Riki's willing body on top.

Over one of the pools on the plateau, the _Main _of the Palace was visible, it's glass and smaller domes, some surrounding balconies and rooms lit by the late sunset filtering through. Somebody walked its interior earlier, but who among the triplets it was, the lovers had not bothered. They were much too caught up in the moment, Riki's mouth watering at the attentions he was receiving, eyes falling shut as the Blondie rammed into him.

Some things had changed in the way all this _loving _was being done. Riki noticed that there existed now in the Blondie a certain _feel _that was absent before, making Iason more like a _human _lover than the artificial machine that he was supposed to be, or was it because they were the _same _now that he could feel him this way? Who knew? He has not seen Raoul yet to confirm anything.

"Ah-haah-hhah…" but damn the sex rocked!

It was perfect and the epitome of bliss few if none have ever experienced, making Riki agree that if there was a degree higher than Cloud Nine, _this _was_ it _- all the time.

"Iason...m-more! More!"

Demanding. Each time it happened the Pet found himself yearning so much, as if he couldn't get enough of the way Iason satisfied him. Sometimes he felt as if he was developing satyriasis tendencies in his craving for that touch, although that would be far from the truth: for he only desired to do _it_ with Iason and could imagine no one else holding him now but the Blondie. Not even with the Furniture would he _relieve _himself, choosing the skill of his hands instead if it came to the punch…

Iason had already sheathed himself deep inside Riki and was now working splendidly towards the Pet's climax, but a beeping was interrupting their coitus, making him wonder who on earth could be responsible for the intrusion.

"Damn this," muttered the Blondie, as he willed a connection with the communication lines. But instead of shutting it off, to Riki's horror, Iason aimed to activate it.

"You're going to - aahhn! - answer that!?"

Even as the Pet gave word to his protests, he continued to melt, the Blondie lifting himself to bite a nipple and making the other stutter, Riki's eyes rolling to the back of his head as the hard - and large - appendage penetrated deeply within him.

With the line opened, the form of Orphe Zavi materialized somewhere on the tranquil pool, making him look like an Adonis standing on the clear water, his virtual self immediately quirking a brow at the sight he had chanced upon.

Sex between a Master and his Pet, among elites, were naturally unheard of, and like any sensible Blondie, Orphe had the tendency to shun its rumours as immediately unbecoming, yet Iason was the sort to hold no fear in his admittance of, and yes, in show that it indeed happens between him and Riki. In the past and at present. He was never one to deny or confirm it when it was yet a clandestine affair, and he was open to discussing it now especially that the _sex _was a staple to being the Neu-Lord. Their union allowed them to access the System.

"Had I called in such bad timing?" came the other Blondie's query, and was about to suggest he'd just call back when Iason gave it a dismissive grunt.

"Iason! Aahhhmn…"

The Exclusive's exuberant exhibition would shame other pets, Orphe thought. Or was it more to the credit of Iason who now, thanks to allowing the other Blondie to _witness_, apparently adored working his Riki to much of an irrepressible euphoria.

"Not...really..." Iason modulated his panting as he continued to thrust up, his and his Pet's bodies merged now obviously although the only visible organ was the Exclusive's penis, bobbing full, before Iason fisted it and pumped. "What is it?"

Riki cried out, hands out to stop the superior Blondie and disengage but the latter held his wrists easily with his other hand, effortlessly trapping him there as the pounding continued.

Orphe just cleared his throat then and proceeded. "Well...an S-class Pet Auction has been sanctioned in Midas and an invitation has been extended to the Council. They asked for your attendance personally. And your Pet's. Gideon will likewise be displaying his latest breeds...in your honour."

Iason toppled Riki over, shifting positions so he may reach even deeper into his Pet, pinning him effortlessly, treating Orphe to a clear view of his massive machine grinding in and out of that tightly-clenching orifice, the awareness of being watched making Riki conscious and Iason want to push that consciousness off the edge. No use to be ashamed, but Riki's reactions were tad virginal.

Orphe just shook his head and sighed in exasperation. He's seen Pet coupling, but _never _an _exclusive _one. It was somehow odd to see an elite of their own class - Iason no less - having sex and enjoying every bit of it. Yet they do make a hot couple. Indeed. Sexdroids would be put to shame at such a display.

On the other hand, Iason pondered momentarily. So after a couple of years, Academy Pets will once more make their stunning appearances? In his honour? What could that mean? "Is that so?" He rammed Riki to the hilt.

"Oh gods Iason!" the Pet writhed, a panting beauty, making Iason chuckle as he continued to grind right on in, playing with his shaft and shifting so he hits him perfectly every time.

"I don't - think - Riki will - approve," said the Master in between his shoves, appearing to be utterly merciless, pulling his Pet to top again and letting his Exclusive impale himself. Riki drowned. Penis fisted and pumped harder, he climaxed, arching, throwing his head back, mouth falling open in another beautiful cry of pleasure.

"Stunning reaction don't you think Orphe?" quizzed the superior Blondie, testing the other's personal opinions, knowing that he, like most, will not say anything offensive. It was a fact that not all of his brothers were used to the scenario the exclusivity had brought. It had been a major change in the caste.

"The Exclusive is a beauty, I must admit," Orphe shared but not without some manner of dry humour, sighing again, this time in relief, as he watched Riki collapse, breathless and satiated, burying his head against Iason's shoulder in a manner of shame.

The Pet cursed his lover for putting him through with this, the Master just laughing at that. "I would have to decline," then replying to his waiting brother.

As opposed to his Pet, Neu-Jupiter still appeared composed, and was a complete sight of control, able to make a complete conversation despite hammering his consort to the limits. It made Orphe swallow.

"I see."

"Iason, wait…" it was Riki. The Pet had managed to lift half-lidded eyes, whispering. "Let's go."

This surprised the Master, "Are you sure?" Orphe had not heard that.

Iason only felt Riki nod against him, then hiding his face again, staying still. There was silence for some time, before any points of argument were dismissed and the conversation picked up between Blondies.

"Orphe, when is the event?" Neu-Jupiter spoke finally.

"In two days time."

"All right then, inform them of my acceptance."

That caught Orphe off guard but he remedied the situation with a nod.

"Of course..."

Small farewells were exchanged before the virtual image faded into nothing, ending the conversation, Orphe from the other end taking a seat as he seemed to have been _overwhelmed _by what had just happened.

He was glad however, that the communicate terminated in a positive way for him, who had since been pestered because Iason had turned down _all_ the invitations he'd selected for him, worried that the heir apparent was going to be rejecting his _social responsibilities _further than he should, really.

At least this was one event he agreed upon. If only he'd agree to all others.

"Maybe I should catch them having sex more often when I ask," the Blondie laughed.

"Why the sudden change of heart? You detested these gatherings," Iason had to ask Riki when they were alone once more.

The sun had just disappeared, bathing the dome of Eos Tower Two with the last of its pastel light. Somewhere, the triplets had begun to close their home part-way, flipping virtual switches on to ready the Palace for the night. The surveillance drones have been deployed to the outer shell as the rest of the other means to enter the dominion were closed out and sealed, the mandatory lock-up when both Masters were already inside already taking effect. Such was the efficiency of the Furniture of the Mink Household.

"Because...maybe you wanted to go," Riki fiddled, making it obvious that there was another reason behind this said _change of heart_.

Although it was a good start. This was a step back into reality and an opportunity to coax Riki out of the womb of isolation he'd made for himself. But still, there was something behind all this surely.

"Liar," and suddenly, the Blondie fisted his hair. "You want to request a visit to Ceres don't you? My, you actually _listened _to Katze."

Call it instinct, or the smart summary of some evident observation. After all, this was only logical as the Pet seemed to have been seen often staring towards the direction of the Slums after a day of flying around in his Palatial cage. Earlier, in fact, he had been staring at it before the Blondie toppled him over.

"The truth Pet."

"Yes. I was."

There was no use denying it. He would ask sooner or later so might as well. The Master's grip loosened.

"There was no need really. To ask it from me," Iason admitted, in fact, had asked Katze in advance to search Ceres for the Pet's old _gang_, only to keep it a secret for now. There was some bad news the last he checked. "I was already planning to take you there."

This surprised Riki. "You were? When?"

"At the moment, perhaps right after the Pet Auction. And after you get your citizen's number implanted."

Riki almost forgot about that. He was to receive his own Identification Number tomorrow, alongside the check-up he'd requested the past week. He'd protested about getting the chip, stating that he already had a Pet Ring to begin with, but Iason insisted that being _Pet _and _citizen _were two entirely different things. Being Exclusive was likewise another issue in reality.

Riki's identity was already a mash-up, a unique breed resulting from the marriage of three or more statuses that the Council deemed a further provision of separation for him and his Master was in order. The Jupiter List already had its own unique ID since its creation, but it will be further acknowledged with the embedding of the Jupiter Mark, a specialized and complicated serialization for the two, Riki to obtain his tomorrow, Iason still yet to decide when he'd get his own altered.

"Can't I get it when _you _get it?"

"No. And don't argue with me."

Riki sighed. "Tomorrow then," and peacefully conceded, but eyed Iason with an uncharacteristic pout. "You'll really let me go to Ceres this time?"

The Blondie ran his fingers against the skin of his Pet's cheek. He could not believe how much they had endured, how far they had come. "Yes. Anywhere for you, my beloved. But remember your restrictions."

Riki scowled, which also meant that he better not go looking for the _ghost _of his old lover while he was there when the time came. "Don't you remind me always?"

Iason laughed at that again, in a good mood, glad that the thought of Guy and the mention of him had never crossed their reality since they've awakened into it. Which was absolutely ideal. Because he could care less what had happened to his Pet's _former _flame...Riki must likewise feel the same.

"You really are about the only one who can talk like that to a Blondie," Iason whispered, before pulling in his beloved for a kiss. Riki obliged, much too happy.

There was no reason to fear. Even if the Master allowed him the visit to his old home, he knew that the Pet only loved _him_. No need for petty leads or the shock of a Pet Ring, for some manner of proving it like he'd done when Bison caught up with them at Apatia. Riki belonged to Neu-Jupiter and it will stay like this. The kiss ended.

Iason sobered. "We don't need to make an appearance at the Pet Auction," the Blondie declared and he meant it. There was no need for any mandatory or obligatory attendance to anything from now on. His Exclusive will not be denied his freedom in this case, because it was one of the things he knew that made his beloved happy.

Riki shook his head, "Let's still go."

Iason had that wondering expression, truly caught off guard "Why's that?" that he had to clarify if he'd heard it correctly.

"You're Jupiter, and I'm the Pet that needs to be by your side," Riki replied. "Besides…we've been fucking for years now, but you've never really taken me out on a date."

At that, the Blondie quirked a brow.

"Really now?"

The Pet continued, "This could be like our first date."

Iason found that to be incredible. Never out on a date? Perhaps. Well, in fact it made good sense, as it was off to bed for them both when they were together. Now that the Blondie thought of it, they've _never _really had any _formal _dinner or trip out. He often dragged his Pet to these things didn't he? And those had been to soirees and coming out balls in the past.

"But I don't think there's a need for any."

"Hey. Don't blame your complete lack of romanticism on me!" Riki flared, very mongrel-like.

The Blondie kissed him again, and heatedly, suddenly rolling them over, the Pet realising his lover was still _hard_, and had not in fact pulled out from where he was buried inside of him. The Master gave him _that _hungry look.

"My turn," he licked his lips. "Time for you to _earn _my permission to visit Ceres."

Iason began thrusting in, Riki arching and struggling again but was effectively trapped within the Blondie's grasp, a trapped animal about to be screwed over again.

"I thought...han-ha-hahh...there was...hng...no need!?"

"I don't recall uttering such nonsense," smiled his Master, a glint of apparent deviousness.

Riki could only whine and stammer, "B-Bastard!"

* * *

_Yuri: this would be my last update on the story for the week or the month, who knows. One, because 'real world' work has caught up with me and, Two, I have two other stories that are in need of their last chapters so I can close them. Once done, I will update the next chapters for Cinco. I'm having way too much fun here that I want to concentrate on it more. But that needs to wait until next time. :)_

_Thank you for the lovers, for flooding my Inbox much. And for that allow me to answer some of your questions: _

_1.) Yeah, I'm also curious when the remake will resume if they ever will. Budget issues, hehehe. Otherwise, let's contend with the four._

_2.) For that other guy who asked where I read the novel, one word, __**Polish**__. It wasn't a pleasant experience. :'(_

_3.) Why a male Jupiter? Because I'm the __**female**__ writing a __**yaoi **__fanfic. _

_4.) Another love triangle? It's there. Just wait. :') _

_5.) Guy re-appearing? Hmmm...that depends on Katze?_

_6.) When's the Pet Auction chapter? Patience. It's in this part._

_7.) War? Hahaha...you'd be surprised._

_Anyway, that's about all that I can respond to for now. Thank you again guys for reading. See you in the next chapter._

* * *

*Official _on hiatus_ mode*


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